


the world is upside down (the king has lost his crown)

by rajishana



Series: love isn't easy but it sure is hard enough [2]
Category: American Gods (TV), American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 11:15:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17765765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rajishana/pseuds/rajishana
Summary: Laura McCabe looks like she’s never been grateful in her entire life. Like she’s never heard the inky sky sing low crooning duets with the stars, their laughter twinkling between the thick trees of the forest. Like she’s never dug her fingers into the damp earth or cut her hair and let the thick strands fall between her fingers to collapse in the dirt like a sacrifice. Like she’s never felt her heart burn with lightning in her chest out of love and madness and grief. Laura McCabe looks like she would never leave a bowl of cream for the faeries.(Laura McCabe is no Essie McGowan).AU





	the world is upside down (the king has lost his crown)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a B-side story to the gods may throw the dice (their minds as cold as ice), which you might want to read first, although it should be able to stand alone.

Mad Sweeney is already a drunk in a shitty bar in the middle of Fuckall, America, when Grimnir shows up. Grimnir refers to him as Mad Sweeney, which Mad Sweeney appreciates, and claps him on the back, which he doesn’t.

“Mad Sweeney, my boy. I have a proposition for you,” Grimnir says, settling onto a stool to Mad Sweeney’s left.

“M’not your boy,” Mad Sweeney says, turning his head towards the god.

Despite the faux-affectionate greeting, Grimnir doesn’t make any effort to be charming. He doesn’t have to. They both already know Mad Sweeney is going to give Grimnir what he wants. The conversation takes all of fifteen minutes – Grimnir’s never been one for excessive explanation, grandiose as he pretends to be when he’s setting up a con – but he gives Mad Sweeney enough to know that he can’t fuck this one up.

“The war is coming,” Grimnir promises. He gives Mad Sweeney a name.

Laura Moon.

 

Mad Sweeney’s hunt and subsequent stalking of Laura Moon isn’t personal. It’s just reconnaissance, a job he’s got to take care of because the girl has the misfortune of having Grimnir’s future plaything be desperately puppy-dog in love with her.

(If he were a less selfish man, a less cowardly one, he might feel bad for her. As it is, he owes enough already).

Grimnir doesn’t make it easy. _Laura Moon_ isn’t the girl’s name, years before her purpose. The spirits in the trees point him in the right direction, though, and coins in the pocket of a local DMV employee does the rest. Laura McCabe, he finds, lives in a house she inherited from her grandmother, an older place on an otherwise comfortably suburban street. As he watches from a distance, he calculates Laura McCabe’s schedule, routine and well-practiced: A job as a croupier Tuesday through Saturday from 6pm to 3am, grocery runs on Thursday afternoons, Sunday dinners with her mother every so often. Boring, predictable. Following the girl, he doesn’t see what might be so enthralling, what might make her such a threat to a god. Then again, it isn’t his job to ask.

He _could_ continue doing this - watch her off and on for the next few years, get the job done from a distance. It’s nothing he hasn’t done before. But there’s always a risk that he’ll miss the timing, that his luck will turn ill at just the wrong time. He can hear a soft song in his ear, comforting and almost too quiet to recognize.

He watches her for two months before he decides to approach.

 

The casino is loud and almost familiar for all that it bears the Jackal’s name. A place where luck is begged for and bartered and stolen. He feels the warmth of Kingsgold in the back of his head, in the palm of his hand. The Anubis is a place as capricious as he is, and he feels it settle into his bones like an old friend.

The girl is at a small blackjack table, her face a mask of pleasant professionalism. When he sits down uncomfortably close to her other clients, evaluating her, he sees something tighten at the corners of her eyes. She looks well enough though, and he says as much, poking at her to see what she does. She bares her teeth in a patently false smile, and Mad Sweeney finds himself frowning at her. He buys a drink, and she comments lightly as he pulls a coin from his hoard: “Neat trick. Do it often?”

A trick, she claims. As if she knows up from down or magic from the scent of her own arse.

“Often, and with panache.” He bares his teeth back at her, reflecting her own false face, and she glances back down at the table. Not quite retreating, Mad Sweeney guesses, not yet.

She doesn’t say much over the next hour, and Mad Sweeney grows bored as he knew he would. The elderly woman with the watery eyes and vacant smile has already left, so he turns slightly to the rumpled businessman complaining next to him. Mad Sweeney focuses on the sweaty, balding man, begrudging his poor luck. What he wouldn't give for someone who could actually throw a punch without breaking his fist.

The man’s not too consumed in his own failures to ignore Mad Sweeney’s pointed staring at him. The man’s eyes flick nervously between his cards and Mad Sweeney. Attention gathered, Mad Sweeney spends the next few rounds making a point to annoy the man. He grins mockingly each time he finds a successful hand, shrugs with disinterest the rare times he doesn’t. He scoffs each time the man tries to make a bet. Eventually, he devolves into plain insults. Laura McCabe’s eyes flash towards him every so often, but she says nothing.

He doubts the man is brave enough to actually swing at him, but Mad Sweeney tries. Stars above, he tries. The man runs off anyway, a coward, and Mad Sweeney sighs, forcing himself to turn back to the woman he’s meant to watch. Laura McCabe watches him carefully out of the corner of her eyes, flipping his cards over silently as he sips at his drink.

There’s something familiar about her, he realizes. Something about the eyes, the downward twist of her mouth. It reminds him of someone he knew long ago, someone with the same expression when times were bad.

 _Essie McGowan_ , he thinks. The last of a dying breed, a true lass of the green isle. A woman with a sharp tongue and a sharper smile, who could steal and laugh and kiss a man with no regret. Essie’d had a warmth to her, a wry sense of humor, a gratefulness to the faeries that brought her both good and ill.  A sense of _wonder_. Mad Sweeney had followed her to the New World, her and others like her, their faith like beacons drawing him in. He had never begrudged them for it, though the New World had in the years since robbed him of all meaning and drive and purpose. Another victim to the great butt-fuckin’ of America.

(He remembers Essie McGowan, and every single one like her; a man in the desert remembers every drop of water).

Laura McCabe looks like she’s never been grateful in her entire life. Like she’s never heard the inky sky sing low crooning duets with the stars, their laughter twinkling between the thick trees of the forest. Like she’s never dug her fingers into the damp earth or cut her hair and let the thick strands fall between her fingers to collapse in the dirt like a sacrifice. Like she’s never felt her heart burn with lightning in her chest out of love and madness and grief. Laura McCabe looks like she would never leave a bowl of cream for the faeries.

(Laura McCabe is no Essie McGowan).

The thought makes him frown, disgruntled. He doesn’t know why he’d even bother to compare them. A boring girl in a boring town versus a lass fit for real adventure. “You look familiar,” he tells her, and she tells him he’s a cheat with a red fuckin’ panda on his head.

It’s easy to needle her after that, easy to spit the sharp words building on his tongue and tell her exactly what he thinks of her and where her future lies. He calls her a dead girl, and even she hears the truth in it. It feels good, the harsh expression on her face, vindictive and self-righteous all at once. He knocks back his drink and storms off, something hot and wild tangled in his blood, and when the bouncers approach him, he’s only too happy to comply.

He lets the bulldogs drag him out, lets them pull him behind into the casino parking lot. They release him and he swings wildly, enjoying the rapid press of his heart thudding in his chest, the sparking-sharp sensation of skin splitting over his knuckles, the flush of heat and metal in his mouth as it fills with blood. He feels the crack as his jaw dislocates with a particularly hard hit and throws himself into the rush of adrenaline and pain and being beat to shit simply because he fucking can. He revels in it. It’s the one thing that hasn’t changed.

He doesn’t lose, per se, but he isn’t the one who walks away this time, drunk as he is. The security guards leave him in a crumpled heap on the asphalt, one cradling a crushed nose and the other spitting thick globules of blood onto Mad Sweeney’s shoes. Mad Sweeney could stumble away if need be, but the guards have already left and the adrenaline and alcohol are wearing down into weariness, so he doesn’t. The Kingsgold sings to him as Mad Sweeney forces himself to lean up against the dented driver’s side door of a shoddy car in the middle of the parking lot. He pulls out a cigarette, smoking it idly as he waits.

Mad Sweeney is exactly where he needs to be when Laura McCabe finishes her shift.

 

It’s easy enough to convince Laura McCabe to take him home, easy enough to push at the small emotional aches he left on her in the casino. He’s had long practice at manipulation, although even he is surprised at how easily she acquiesces. He wonders if she has a bit of a rebellious streak, or simply has a general lack of self-preservation. He watches her as she drives, and he thinks about how much easier his life would be if he grabbed the wheel from her now, rammed them both into the large oak trees on either side of the road. But he's used plenty of luck already, and he doesn’t want to deal with the cracked ribs the Kingsgold won’t save him from, doesn’t want to worry about finding another place to stay for the night, and so he doesn’t.

Decided, Mad Sweeney turns to watch her out of the corner of his eye, fingers tapping lightly on the passenger-side door. There’s a curious blankness to her as she drives him back to her home, a queer tilt to her chin. He can’t tell what she’s thinking to save his life, and Mad Sweeney is startled to realize he can’t read her near as well as he thought he would. As her eyes flicker from tree to tree, lingering, he wonders, briefly, if her thoughts follow his.

 

“C’mon,” she says once they arrive at the small house Mad Sweeney knows she inherited from her grandmother. A homestead has weight to it, a magic of its own, and he feels the weight of it press against him until the girl’s key slides into the lock and it falls away. She opens the door and storms in, not waiting for him, tossing her keys in a nearby bowl. She drops her purse on the table and reaches inside, then turns to face him. Mad Sweeney closes the door behind him and doesn’t bother to lock it, too curious about the small pink taser suddenly grasped in her hand.

“I wasn’t planning on murdering anybody tonight,” Mad Sweeney says.

“I don’t care about that,” she says. “But steal my stuff and you and Mr. Zappy here are going to get intimate. Got it?”

Mad Sweeney can’t help but stare at her. “You don’t care about me _killing you_ ,” he says with emphasis, one eyebrow raising high, “but theft is the hill you die on?”

Laura shrugs, her gaze not breaking his. Her thumb presses down warningly on the taser, the crackle of electricity loud and pointed.

Mad Sweeney rolls his eyes. “I swear by the trees,” he says, rote, “that I will not _steal your_ _stuff_.”

She tosses the taser aside. “Fine, then,” she says. Then she’s in front of him, pulling his head down to hers.

 

For all that she’s a pain in the ass, Laura McCabe kisses well. She’s aggressive, like she’s trying to devour him. His busted lip splits open again as she presses against him, his blood warm and coppery between them, and Mad Sweeney finds himself interested despite himself. She’s a pretty girl, he reasons, and it’s been a long time.

As Laura McCabe tangles her hands into his hair, pulling him closer to her, Mad Sweeney responds quickly, picking the girl up. He plants his hands firmly on her ass, pulling her tight against his waist and walking her to the couch. He drops her, and she bounces on the old cushions with an unwilling gasp of air, glaring at him. Her lips are already swollen from kissing, almost bruised, and Mad Sweeney wastes no time covering her body with his. As his hands start to wander, his fingers plucking at a raised nipple through her shirt, Mad Sweeney thinks that a better man would ask if the girl was sure, would maybe even refuse outright, given the secrets he’s hiding from her. The thought makes him hesitate, makes him bring his hands back up to cradle her face and slow the grinding between their bodies. He should stop, he thinks. He’s not this far gone, yet.

She slaps him hard, then, her hand sharp and painful against his bruised, swollen face. Mad Sweeney rears back, surprised, and her eyes burn into his with a challenge he’s seen a hundred, a thousand times. He sees a warzone there, his heartbeat is thrumming in his ears and he can feel a rush of heat to his groin. He grins at her, blood still in his teeth, digs his fingers deep into the soft skin of her hips and pulls her to him roughly. _Interesting_ , he thinks, as she wraps his hair in her fingers and _yanks_ , her mouth angry against his before moving to suck harsh bruises into his neck. He bends to bite her, hard enough that the mark is still there two days later, stark above the collar of her shirt.

She bites him right back.

 

Mad Sweeney stays, but it’s a shit-poor idea. Living with another creature, let alone a mortal, is an adjustment. Mad Sweeney is not domestic by nature— he’s no brownie, content to clean houses and bless families, homes, and hearths for a bit of bread and honey.

Most days he questions whether staying in the woman’s house is worth the inevitable loss of sanity. He wonders what her appeal is, why some sucker would try to overcome death for her. He looks her over for marks and sigils, the old magic ways that Diarmuid suffered so well. There’s nothing – just a plain, embittered mortal, prettier than most in this podunk town, admittedly, with a mouth that’d better belong on a snake than a woman. Faithless, suspicious, apathetic, thoughtlessly and deliberately cruel. The kind of woman that the tales of his homeland used to say would only earn ruin – or queenship.

 _Maybe it’s a magic snatch_ , he thinks idly. Skies above, it wouldn’t be the first time.

So, yes, he leaves Laura’s mail in the fierce wet when he sees it, and yes, he calls her a cunt because he knows she hates it. But he’s also not going to let himself starve since she can’t cook shit other than chili, and he’s not going to let _her_ starve, either, since she’ll leave the takeout trash pointedly all over the couch if he tries. So, he cooks. He does the dishes. He takes out the trash. He makes sure she has a minimum of at least two orgasms every time they have sex. He makes himself a _contributing member of the household_. It’s a matter of hospitality and personal pride, and a goddamn nightmare besides.

The cat, though. The cat, at least, he likes.

 

Once a month or so, Grimnir contacts him when Laura is off at work, ravencall loud and echoing. The first time, Mad Sweeney meets him five miles away in a shitty biker bar that Grimnir seems fond of. Looking around at the three interlocked triangles pressed to each biker’s leather jacket and the gruff bearded men that remind him of the _Úlfhéðnar_ of old, Mad Sweeney can guess why.

The bar’s air conditioning has broken down, and the summer heat leaves it smelling like leather and body odor. Mad Sweeney feels sweat pooling at his temples, slipping down the back of his neck, making him shudder. He catches the back of Grimnir’s head in the far corner of the bar and slips into the booth across from the old god.

“Good to see you, my man,” Grimnir says from behind his paper.  Grimnir sets it down, considers him. “How are things going with Ms. Moon?”

“It’s McCabe,” Mad Sweeney says. “You gave me the wrong fuckin’ name.”

Grimnir shrugs. “Seems like you found her anyway. Tell me, how is she in bed?”

“Passable.”

Grimnir laughs, a deep rumble in his chest. “I knew it! A fine girl like that, hard to keep your hands off, hmm?”

“Off her throat, maybe,” Mad Sweeney says. “The girl’s looney. I’ve half a mind to throttle her in the night and leave her for your wolves to find.”

“Now, now,” Grimnir says gently. “Have patience. It will all come together in the end, I’m sure. No need to get violent just yet.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“You don’t have to like Ms. McCabe. You just have to stay close. Be your normal, charming self and things will go just fine.”

Mad Sweeney snorts.

“Just don’t get attached,” the god reminds him.

Well, there’s no risk of that, Mad Sweeney thinks.

 

There’s something about the way she thinks, though, that intrigues him. A certain kind of absolute cynicism he’s only ever seen in gods and the few figures of folklore that’ve made it to the modern day. For Laura, people are only ever predictable, dull. She hates the autopilot; the casual, pointless interactions that occur from day to day.

“I don’t want to just fill up space,” she tells him one night. They’re drunk at the park, Mad Sweeney’s skin itching with the urge to run, the yearning for rolling fields and deep green groaning in his bones. “People go their whole lives just filling up space. They go to work and they get married and they talk about the weather and then they die and there’s a vacuum, and we fill it with our ideas of what the person was like and pretend like they mattered.” Laura lies back in the grass, covering her eyes with her arm. “It’s all so fucking pointless. We just go on and go on because we can’t think of anything better to do and we’re too afraid to deal with the fact that nothing happens once it’s all over.”

“It’s all a great shitshow,” he informs her, words slurring. He’s drunker than he means to be, because he shouldn’t be saying that, really. But he continues, describing the world behind the curtain, the complexities and petty hatreds of an uncaring universe and the forgotten magic it harbors.

She lifts her arm to watch him, her eyes skeptical as he talks about the world he’s so intimately familiar with, about the creatures and faeries of his childhood. “You’re so full of shit,” she says, the closest he’s heard her come to fondness in the month and a half he’s been there.

Then she rolls over to slip a leg over his hips, and they don’t talk, after that.

 

Mad Sweeney is there two months when he feels the Kingsgold sing shrilly in his ears as he enters the house, a high keening song that digs underneath his skin, makes it itch.

“Laura?” Mad Sweeney calls. He searches briefly in the living room, by the bed, but there are few places she could hide. He glances out the backdoor towards the hot tub in her backyard, the one they never use. Mad Sweeney remembers Laura’s lingering, dispassionate stares, and the Kingsgold screams.

Mad Sweeney sprints outside, accidentally ramming his shoulder against the sliding glass window as he pulls it open and moves past. He rushes to the hot tub to find Laura curled inside, the plastic foam top pushed off to the side. Her breaths are coming in quick gasps. He gags, briefly, on the thick cloud of chemicals.

“Don’t you fucking dare die now,” he hisses as he pulls her out and drags her to the ground. Immediately she is gasping in air, her eyelids fluttering.  He smacks her cheek hard, her head turning to the side as she coughs and coughs. She smells like bleach and ammonia.

Laura turns over and vomits, the heaving eventually slowing to small gasping breaths. They breathe together in silence until she settles, Mad Sweeney’s heartbeat thudding loudly in his ears.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she says after a while, not looking at him, and goes to do just that.

 

He waits in the living room for her, but Laura doesn’t come. He hears her climb out of the shower, hears her pull her closet open and the rough click of her clothes hangers clacking together. Then she moves wordlessly to the kitchen, and he hears the rapid tick of the stovetop burner turning on.

Mad Sweeney continues to wait silently on the couch, fists clenched and pressed against his legs. Eventually, he can’t stand it anymore and he slams the door open to the kitchen. Laura is standing in front of the stove, staring out the kitchen window. Her hand stirs whatever’s in the pan absent-mindedly.

Calm, Mad Sweeney thinks. Remain calm.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Mad Sweeney says.

Laura turns. “What do you mean?” She says, flatly.

“Don’t do that,” Mad Sweeney warns.

Laura sighs and turns away from dinner to face him. “I was cleaning the hot tub. I thought it might be nice to use when it gets cold. It was an accident.”

Maybe it was, Mad Sweeney thinks, maybe she didn’t mean for it to go so far, affect her so much, but getting in there in the first place wasn’t an accident. Mad Sweeney has never been surer of anything in his life, and he can’t help it; his mouth gapes open.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No, I’m not _fucking_ kidding you,” Laura retorts.

“So you just decided to climb in and scrub out the tub with chlorine gas?” Mad Sweeney says. “Let me find you days later, when you’re rotting and stinking up the place?”

Laura shrugs.

“You’re an asshole,” he says, surprised suddenly at how venomously pissed he is. “A real piece of shit.”

“I mislabeled one of the bottles. I’ll fix it later,” she says, irritably. “It’s not a big deal,”

A buzzing builds up in his ears, drowning out all noise. “ _Not a big deal_ ,” he repeats, incredulous. He clenches his hands into fists, because if he doesn’t he will fucking strangle her, he swears to every fucking tree in the forest, his very hoard and the Kingsgold it holds.

“Yeah,” she says, like it’s obvious, and that’s when he fucking loses it.

 **“** I swear by the years I spent in the _fucking trees_ ,” he shouts, the words bursting out of him, his legs moving him back and forth across the kitchen against his will. He points his finger at her like he’s stabbing her in the goddamn eye with it. “You are the most _infuriating cunt_ I’ve ever met.”

Laura’s eyes flash. “Call me a cunt one more time,” she says.

“Or what?” He challenges. He can smell dinner blackening and burning behind her. Good. The house can burn down for all he cares.

“Or I’ll kick you so hard in the balls they’ll come back out your mouth!” Laura says, finally shouting back, as if _she_ has the right to be pissed, as if _she_ almost found a goddamn body.

“Jesus fucking Christ on a spit, _I can’t stand you.”_ Mad Sweeney’s voice echoes in the kitchen, the sound of it roaring in his ears. _She almost died. How fucking – How dare –_

“Then get the fuck out of my house,” she says, her voice returning to a normal volume, it’s tone all faux sweetness and bitter sarcasm. “There’s nothing keeping you here.”

She’s such a _brat_ , such a relentless stubborn _wench_ . Does she have to make his life so _goddamn hard?_ He’s not a bad person. He’s not. He doesn’t deserve this— How could she not see—not _know_ — He’s so goddamn furious, he can’t even think straight. He grips her tight in his arms, pulls her towards him, face to fucking face and tells her fucking _again_.

“This is where I have to be,” He tells her, and it’s all her goddamn fault he’s trapped here with her, because she can’t keep her cock-sucking mouth to herself and stop pissing off the gods, and he can’t let her die, _not just yet_ — “I’m not leaving you yet, dead girl.”

She deserves this, he tells himself furiously, if she doesn’t want to be tricked, she should listen to what he’s saying. Then the coldest, cruelest thought in his head: if she wants to die so badly, he’ll kill her.

She’s not listening, though. She can’t. She’s mortal and small and fury is sparking in her eyes and she can’t hear him.

“Don’t call me that,” she says, all promise and all threat.

When she reaches for him, her mouth vicious and biting, she tears at him like she wishes she could pull the flesh from his bones.

Fucking hell, he thinks as she shoves him to the ground, sometimes he wishes she would. It would be easier to deal with, at least.

 

“Next time it needs to be cleaned, let me do it,” Mad Sweeney says the next day. He watches her as he says it, sees how she turns a page of the newspaper, doesn’t flinch.

“I don’t think it needs to be cleaned for a while,” Laura says.

A few weeks later, Laura digs out the kiddy pool from the garage instead.

 

Mad Sweeney is watching Wheel of Fortune, sipping on a beer that he fully intends to finish before the next commercial break when he hears tapping on the nearest window. Craning his head, he barely makes out the outline of a huge raven. Muninn tilts its head, and, making eye contact, taps deliberately on the window three times in succession.

“Fuck me,” Mad Sweeney mutters. He walks over to the window, unlatching the lock and lifting the pane. The window creaks the whole way, and Mad Sweeney reminds himself to oil it if godly representatives will be visiting regularly. The wind curling at the edge of the windows is colder than it should be, and goosebumps crawl up both his arms.

“What do _you_ want?” He says. The bird doesn’t answer, just tilts its head and jumps up and down twice. Mad Sweeney sighs.

“Fine,” he mutters. “I’ll get a coat on.”

Mad Sweeney goes to Laura’s closet and pulls out a ragged sweater she stole from an old boyfriend. It’s worn and warm, and Mad Sweeney pulls it over his head quickly. The fabric pulls at the seams as he stretches, but it fits well enough for a walk.

“You smell like spoiled cunt.” Grimnir says sourly when Mad Sweeney arrives.

“You’re in a fuckin’ mood,” Mad Sweeney replies, scowling. He waves a hand lazily at the bartender who nods. A few minutes later a Southern Comfort is in front of him, and Grimnir is still sneering.

Mad Sweeney frowns. Grimnir’s displeasure is never a good sign. It always leads to trouble.

“It’s all taking too long,” Grimnir says, almost growling. “We’re running out of _time_. And all those fools think the weight of history will save them.”

“We don’t change easy,” Mad Sweeney says. He doubts Grimnir’s really hearing him, though. He’s known Grimnir a long time, and Grimnir rarely wants advice unless he asks for it, even when complaining. “They’ll come around. You’ll make them, one way or another.”

“ _Participation_  isn’t enough,” Grimnir hisses. He’s never looked so intense in all their years together. “I have to make them _believe_.”

Grimnir’s eyes flicker up quickly, flashing over Mad Sweeney’s face. The skin around his eyes are tense with distrust, and Mad Sweeney knows that Grimnir’s not sure where Mad Sweeney stands. If he’s trying to put everything Grimnir’s doing together. But Mad Sweeney doesn’t care about what secrets the god is hiding. He never has.

Mad Sweeney lifts up his glass and takes a drink, a bitter smile pulling at his mouth when he sets it back down. “What the hell would a god believe in?”

Grimnir watches Mad Sweeney over his beer, and says nothing else about it.

 

“We’re going to my Mom’s tonight,” Laura informs him Sunday, month three into his sentence. Mad Sweeney is lounging on the couch, both legs propped up on the coffee table next to his beer, a PBR Laura bought him since it was cheap. Laura wanders into the living room half-dressed, her hair wrapped up in a towel. Mad Sweeney takes an appreciative glance at her bare legs before her words register and he looks up sharply.

“What? No.” He says. He shouldn’t be surprised – she goes often enough – but somehow he thought he was exempt.

“My mom wants to make sure the freeloader in my house isn’t a serial killer, so yes, you’re coming.”

“Are you fucking daft? There is no way in hell I want to meet the woman who pushed _you_ out of her twat.”

Laura’s eyes darken. “You’re going,” she says.

Mad Sweeney narrows his eyes. “No, I’m not,” he replies.

“You’re going, or you’re going to find a potato shoved so far up your ass, fries come out your nose,” Laura says, calmly.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Mad Sweeney says, appalled. Laura smiles thinly at him and turns back towards her room.

“Find a shirt that doesn’t look like you got it rolling around in a dumpster,” Laura calls over her shoulder as she re-enters her room.

“I’m not going and _that’s final,”_ Mad Sweeney shouts, but Laura’s already slammed the door shut.

 

Laura’s mother is a short woman in her mid-sixties with thinning grey hair cut short and a lean, silvery cross hanging around her neck. She’s wearing a turtleneck and pressed, well-fitting pants despite the heat blazing outside, and the expression on her face as she opens the door and sees him is uncomfortably familiar in its judgment.

“Hey, Mom,” Laura says mildly as Laura’s mother pulls back the door to let them in, pressing a kiss to her mother’s cheek. A wave of Chanel no. 5 punches Mad Sweeney in the face.

Laura’s mother’s house is a hellscape of china dolls and flowery wallpaper. Moving gracefully, Laura’s mother waves them over to the white furniture, covered by thick plastic that crinkles as they sit. There’s a collection of bronze crucifixes hanging heavily above the fireplace mantle. The smell of lemon furniture polish and old smoke fills his nose, and Mad Sweeney fights back the urge to gag.

“Mr. Sweeney,” Laura’s mother says sweetly. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”

Mad Sweeney doubts it. Despite the mild, friendly tone, the McCabe matriarch’s eyes are cold behind her placid smile. Laura tenses beside him.

“Laura needs a good man in her life,” Mrs. McCabe continues. “Ever since my Harvey passed away it’s been so hard on her – He never had the chance to walk her down the aisle, you know.”

Mad Sweeney glances over at Laura. Her mouth is thin and white-lipped, turned up in that blank, professional smile she uses in public.

“Mom, don’t, you’re embarrassing me.” Laura says with a tight laugh, and Mad Sweeney wants to vomit. “Mad Sweeney is just staying with me for a short while.”

“What, I can’t worry about you? You’ve been so lonely lately, Laurie, and to suddenly take in a stranger, I can only assume you’ve been hiding a beau from me—”

Mad Sweeney sighs. Stars above, save him from domineering mothers.

 

Dinner is a maddening affair, even for him. Mrs. McCabe clearly hates him, no matter what she says or how pleasantly she says it, and though he really couldn’t care less the real disconcerting thing is how Laura transforms in the woman’s presence.

There’s something about Mrs. McCabe that makes Laura less, somehow. Makes her the dead girl he calls her, all pretty blue dresses of a tasteful length, carefully brushed hair and plastic smile. Laura is nothing but a doll in her mother’s house, all propriety and automatic responses. At dinner her posture is oddly perfect, elbows off the table, head tilted demurely even as she argues with her mother.

“It’s so rare to have Laurie come home to visit -” Mrs. McCabe starts, her knife scraping roughly against her plate as she cuts into her generous slice of lasagna.

“Mom, I come all the time -” Laura interrupts, her fork pushing peas around on her plate. She puts it down without taking a bite.

“I haven’t seen you at church lately, either, darling.”

“You know how I feel about that,” Laura says.

Mad Sweeney, for all his flaws, has always known better than to get between women in conflict. As Laura and her mother talk across him, he shovels lasagna down his throat. The stuff isn’t half-bad -- It would be a waste to leave it behind if he needs a quick exit.

“But what will Pastor Willis think? Nancy’s daughter comes every week _and_ to bible studies on Wednesday.”

Laura says nothing, finally slipping a slice of lasagna in her mouth. “This is really good, Mom. Thank you.”

Mrs. McCabe sighs. “You’re welcome, dear,” she says, and takes a bite of her own. Mad Sweeney can hear the sound of their chewing in the silence and struggles to keep the sharp screech of silverware connecting to himself.

Inevitably, however, the McCabe matriarch turns her attention towards Mad Sweeney instead.

“How about you, Mr. Sweeney? Are you a God-fearing man?”

“Not as such,” Mad Sweeney says shortly. “Haven’t had much luck with saints or churches, neither.”

“It can’t be that bad. Really, you should come with Laurie and me to church this weekend.”

“Ma’am, I really can’t --”

“I can make my famous lemon bars,” Mrs. McCabe insists, “Nancy is always begging me for the recipe, she’s quite envious, I’m embarrassed to say--”

 _Shut up,_ he thinks.

“--led a prayer circle for Susan, poor thing is going through a divorce, husband left with his secretary and she’s left with two kids, poor dear, but she should have known better, really, I told her --”

Laura has long shoved her plate away. Her shoulders are curving in on themselves, heavy and exhausted as she tries to outlast her mother’s onslaught. He can barely recognize her, can barely recognize himself, sitting still and whipped like some kept _dog_ as this woman rambles on about her pointless life. The smell of lemon polish, perfume, and smoke are thick, nauseating over the food, and Mrs. McCabe’s knife scrapes against the plate, _over_ and _over_ and _over_ as she speaks.

(“-- and Pastor Willis is excellent, really, he had the most touching sermon just the other day--”)

He’s trying, he really is. Then, for a brief moment, he meets Laura’s eyes. And he just - can’t, anymore.

“Actually, I’m not a big fan of any padre,” he says loudly. Mrs. McCabe’s litany stops immediately.

“What?”

Mad Sweeney leans forward, meeting Mrs. McCabe’s stare directly. “In fact, I once ended up buck naked chasing a bishop off my land when he was trespassing.”

“Well! I--”

“Cursed me up a storm, too,” Mad Sweeney continues. “See, he was trying to build a church on my land, and all day he was ringing that damn bell of his.” Mad Sweeney thrusts his hands outward like an explosion of force. “Bong! Bong! Bong!”

With each bell, Mad Sweeney’s hands come closer and closer to Mrs. McCabe’s face, the final toll bringing his wide palm only inches from her nose. Mrs. McCabe reels back, but Mad Sweeney continues, moving further into her space, table pressing hard into his stomach.

“Drove me fuckin’ mad, day after day. So finally I have enough, storm out the house.” He lowers his voice conspiratorially. “‘Course, my lady at the time, she’s a righteous woman, so she tries to stop me - pulls my cloak clean off, leaves me nothing to cover myself. But it’s my land, and I’m not about to let my dick hangin’ out stop me, so I drag the saint off of my land and toss his holy book right in the water.”

“Mr. Sweeney, this is _not_ appropriate dinner conversation.” Mrs. McCabe says sternly. Her fingers are white-knuckled around her fork and knife, and nobody, not even Laura, is pretending to eat any longer. Gods, Mad Sweeney hopes she tries to stab him.

“That’s not all!” He says, like he’s declaring a carnival game. “Y’ see, next day he has it back, and he’s pissin’ mad. He curses me. He and his men, they taunt me before a fight, and of course, I can’t let that slide after all the rest, so I gotta put my blade through his heart--”

“Stop.” Mrs. McCabe says, horrified, _“stop.”_

The whole dirty affair is tumbling out, faster and faster. Mad Sweeney’s tongue almost trips over itself in its rush, and a sick satisfaction rises in Mad Sweeney’s chest as Mrs. McCabe begins to realize the type of man she’s invited to her dinner table, the type of man _living_ with her _daughter_. He’s barely aware of Laura, vibrating beside him, as he starts to describe the rest. “And I’m tellin’ you, that spear really _flew,_ slid right through him like butter--”

 _“Mr. Sweeney!_ ” Mrs. McCabe finally shouts, slamming her hands on the table. A brittle silence echoes in the face of her anger, masking fear, as she and Mad Sweeney glare at one another.

Finally, he rises from the table, smoothly bowing in the old way. “Excuse me,” Mad Sweeney says, perfectly calm. “I think I left something in the kitchen.”

He feels Laura’s eyes follow him as he exits the dining room, fists clenched by his side.

 

He distracts himself by washing the piles of dishes and pans left behind in the sink. Even from the kitchen, he can hear the McCabe women arguing:

“I can’t believe you let that _maniac_ stay in your grandmother’s house—”

“It’s my house, Mom, and I can let whoever I want stay in it—”

“I’m only worried for your safety, Laurie, a man like that—”

“I’ve been _fucking_ him for three months, so—”

“ _Laura Emily McCabe!_ You will not speak like that in this house—”

Mad Sweeney lets it fade out of his hearing, focusing on the warm soapy water and the dishes grasped firmly in his hands.

Eventually Laura slams her way into the kitchen with a frustrated huff, pulling her hair out of her face. She spots him by the sink immediately and crosses her arms.

“Don’t bother. She’ll probably rewash them out of spite.”

“Hospitality rules,” Mad Sweeney informs her without further explanation, placing the last dish on the rack and choosing to wipe his hand on a nearby doily rather than the towel hanging from the oven to his left.

“Yeah, that’ll definitely make up for telling my mother you killed a priest.”

He shrugs.

“Fuck her,” Mad Sweeney says.

“You can’t say shit like that about my mom,” Laura says. Despite her words and bland tone, there’s a small smile playing about her face, one he doesn’t recognize but feels genuine. “Did you really kill a guy?”

“Not Ronan,” he tells her after a brief pause to think about it. “S’a pity. Man was a real cunt.”

Laura rolls her eyes. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” she says, and bumps her shoulder against him. “Truce?”

“Truce,” he agrees. For whatever that’s worth.

 

That night:

“You’ve never seen Guiding Light?”

“The one where some bint evil-cloned herself?”

“Come here,” she says, already moving her feet to put in his lap.

 

Grimnir and Laura’s bullshit mother aside, it’s nice, the halcyon days, better than the years he spent drunk in dimly lit bars, the seasons passing like leaves down a river, brown and clumped and indistinguishable. He can forget himself sometimes, forget the long weight of history in favor of being present. Laura stands for nothing less.

She asks him questions every so often. She always asks when he’s in a bleedin’ state; when the green calls to him, when something restless is bubbling beneath his skin threatening to boil over and the urge to run or fly or sink into the trees nearly overtakes him. Sometimes he wonders if it’s magic that tells her when to ask him, if she has something whispering in her veins that says _now, ask, conquer,_ _before the lies burrow into his tongue,_ _poisonous roots digging into fertile earth._

Sometimes she asks him to tell her a story like the ones before, stories of battle and fools and madness. She laughs at him during these, her words as wicked sharp as his own, and he can almost see what a mortal man might, in her.

Other times she asks him to tell her something true, not-quite-secrets he keeps close to his chest, raw and desperately honest. These moments are strangely sentimental, and when he answers, she never believes him, not once. He tells her that he’s a leprechaun, that he’s a king, that he’s cursed, and she scoffs.

It makes Mad Sweeney want to shock her, to pull reactions deep from her gut. He starts telling her the truth in bits and pieces, over and over, as if repetition will make them stick. In the summer, sweat pooling on the back of his neck as they lounge in wiry chairs in her front lawn. In the beginnings of fall, drinking beer and watching flickering lightning bugs over a twice-damned fire that wouldn’t light. He questions her and lets the truth curl around the edges, the tragedy and comedy of it all. She plays the cynic, physics in place of magic, nihilism in place of faith.

Perhaps, he thinks, the roil in his blood settling into a low hum, stubbornness is a magic all its own.

 

It’s the high heat of summer when Grimnir calls for Mad Sweeney again. He walks along the sidewalk, his shirt hanging around his shoulders as he wipes sweat off his brow. The bar is hazy in the distance, and he chugs down a water bottle as he nears it, tossing it aside in the trash outside. The air is cool as he enters the dive bar, and he finds Grimnir waiting.

Immediately, Mad Sweeney realizes that something has changed. Voices are raucous and filled with a violent glee. Grimnir’s pleasure fills the bar for the first time in as many months, the rumbling tension underneath Grimnir’s friendly facade suddenly broken free. Beer is flowing, and as Grimnir gets up himself to get them drinks, more than one fight breaks out. Inevitable, with the blessing of the one-eyed god.

“Who blew you?” Mad Sweeney asks once Grimnir settles back in. Almost instantly, a large steak and accompanying fries are set in front of the old man.

“Mad Sweeney, old cad, everything is finally coming together,” Grimnir says,  cutting off a piece and bringing it to his mouth. The steak is dark red, nearly raw, and Mad Sweeney looks away quickly.

“Sure looks it,” May Sweeney says, his voice wry, “Good for you.” He’s never appreciated Grimnir’s need to gloat, to be the smartest god in every room, but he’s long resolved himself to it. He used to think that the old god’s overconfidence would trip him up, would lead to some consequence or another by the end. He used to think a lot of things, when he first arrived here.

(The Kingsgold sings quietly - luck never leans one way forever. Mad Sweeney knows that better than most).

Grimnir leans forward, his eyes glittering. “We found him. My man.”

Something cold and hard digs into his chest, almost crowding out the dull surprise. “So he’s agreed?” Mad Sweeney asks, throat suddenly tight. “We’re done here?”

“He will soon enough,” Grimnir says dismissively. “We just have to keep him away from the...improper influences. I’m sure you have a handle on that.”

Mad Sweeney sighs. “Yeah, yeah. I got it.”

Grimnir lays down his silverware, raising an eyebrow. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” Mad Sweeney says.

“I don’t need to worry about your level of commitment here, do I? After all, you’ve come all this way--”

“You don’t need to worry,” Mad Sweeney says, gruffly. “I know what I owe.”

“Good,” Grimnir says, picking back up his fork and knife. He cuts off another piece of steak, stuffs it in. "By the way, the girl. Laura Moon. I hear she's real good with her mouth."

Mad Sweeney has seen first hand what Grimnir’s runes and magic can do, the kinds of spells he can weave over women regardless of where their true desire lies. A shudder, ice-cold, runs down the back of his neck. "Where'd you hear that?"

Grimnir smiles, teeth flecked with undercooked meat.

 

Grimnir is almost gleeful when he finally shares his vision of Laura Moon’s death in all its lurid, glorious detail. He includes a colorful play-by-play courtesy of Muninn, the vision blurry in places where the future sight isn’t as strong. It goes in fits and starts, but it’s clear enough when Grimnir puts it into his head.

“And then when you finally ram into her, her jaw snaps shut!” Grimnir finishes, his voice filled with sardonic humor. He is a born story-teller and soothsayer, surpassed only by Anansi himself. “Honestly, if the internal injuries didn’t end her, the suffocation would.” Grimnir pauses, then says, carefully, “A real whore, if you ask me.”

Mad Sweeney doesn’t bother to question why Grimnir would tell him all this now, why he’s watching Mad Sweeney with a sharp gaze. It’s a warning, clear enough, and it’s pointless.

Mad Sweeney’s going to do the job he’s been assigned. He owes a battle and no girl is going to change that, not even one like Laura McCabe.

 

The housing association courtesy of Laura’s best friend Audrey holds several barbecues that summer. Mad Sweeney’s not a fan, although to be fair he’s only invited the once before he’s banned, also courtesy of Audrey.

Boring though the suburban ritual is, the lifetime ban isn’t actually intentional. Mad Sweeney honestly doesn’t begin his first-ever neighborhood summer barbecue intending to hurt Laura’s best friend’s husband. He might not be the most patient man, kind or even particularly pleasant, but even he can play at decent for an afternoon. After all, Mad Sweeney isn’t exactly a fan of Audrey or Robbie or their boring, married lives, but he has nothing against them, either. He’s just bored stupid, is all, a little on edge after his meeting with Grimnir, rolling his eyes while Laura stares at him blankly with a dangerous turn to her mouth. What a fucking hypocrite.

The afternoon air is hot and humid, and the barbecue is too dry, poorly flavored with store-bought sauce. Audrey is sending him dirty looks, muttering to Laura out of the side of her mouth. Mad Sweeney is too ill-fitting in her perfect neighborhood, too coarse and too blunt for her suburban sensibilities. Mad Sweeney watches her and almost envies her ability to ignore the truth of things – her best friend’s apathy, her husband’s wandering eyes, her own darkness and the sharp words that sometimes slip out. Audrey hates him and doesn’t quite realize why, and it’s a pity, because Mad Sweeney likes the bitter part of her well enough. It’s the future soccer mom he can’t stand.

Robbie, though. Robbie acting the maggot in front of the grill, chattering at Mad Sweeney as if they are meant to be friends, as if Mad Sweeney doesn’t see the way Robbie’s eyes follow Laura when Audrey’s not looking, cupping her breasts and dipping low to hug the natural sway of her hips.

A liar, through and through, and Laura would fuck him, Mad Sweeney knows now. She would fuck him just because he was there and because her husband was gone and because she could, and when the dumb fucker returned she would still plan to play the good wife and the good best friend like her best friend’s husband hadn’t bent her over her own kitchen table the same morning. She would say goodbye to the man who spent a year and a half between her legs and then as they drove to pick up her husband she would bend down and pull Robbie’s rapidly hardening cock into her mouth as he gripped the clutch. She would have the blood-salt taste of him on her tongue and the heavy weight of his cock in her mouth when she died and Mad Sweeney would stare down at her from the wreckage of their colliding cars and would know, even then, that she didn’t deserve it any more or any less than he did. He would _know_ , and Mad Sweeney would stand there, killing her anyway.

Mad Sweeney doesn’t begin the barbecue intending to hurt Laura’s best friend’s husband. The punch, landing hard on Robbie’s face, is more of an afterthought than anything.

He’s banned immediately, of course, but he didn’t like Robbie’s shitty barbecue anyway.

 

“Are you fucking anybody else?” Mad Sweeney asks. He probably should have asked sooner, considering, but he’s never really cared before. He can feel something on the wind, though, something dangerous. Despite his better instincts, it makes him want to tighten his grip. He should know better.

“Are you serious?”

Laura lifts her head off his chest to look him in the face. She drops her head back down with a thud, her forehead pressed against him while she mutters into his chest: “Of course you’re the jealous type."

He scowls. “M'not _jealous,"_ he says. "I just want to make sure that when my penis finally wilts it's because of your nagging and not some disease you got fucking the milkman."

“I’ve got my hands full with you as it is, fire crotch,” she says, pointedly pulling at a hair too far down south. He smacks at her hand irritably, and he can hear the mocking grin on her face when she continues. “And I’m betting no one else is willing to put up with your broke ginger ass, so I guess I’m stuck with you.”

It’s not surprising exactly, her fidelity. But her answer is - something, anyway. A relief, maybe, that he has no obstacles in his way.

 _Don’t get attached_ , he wants to say, although Laura is the last type of woman to get doe-eyed. _You deserve this, you heartless she-bitch,_ he doesn’t say, because he doesn’t believe that anymore despite his best efforts.

“Sometimes you say the sweetest things,” he says instead, making sure to keep the right amount of annoyed gruffness in his voice. She gets up off of him and wanders to the closet, rolling her eyes.

“Don’t make too much of it.”

She finishes pulling a shirt over her head and grabs her keys out of their bowl by the door, chucking them at his head.

“Go get some beer from the store -- We’re almost out. You do know you’re an alcoholic, right?”

“That’s a stereotype,” Mad Sweeney says, and Laura rolls her eyes again as she walks out the door.

This should be a relief, Mad Sweeney reminds himself.

 

It ends on a day like any other, of course. It always does, and Mad Sweeney is not entirely surprised when it comes. After all, it was a time-sensitive deal from the start.

Huginn finds him first, cawing loudly at the kitchen window, and Mad Sweeney finishes washing his soapy hands with a sigh. “That time again, is it?” He says, and the raven shrugs.

Mad Sweeney  decides to walk to the bar. Laura left cash on the table for him, and he needs to grab another case of her beer on the way back. They need toilet paper, too, because Laura is a goddamn slob who will never go to get it herself. By the time he gets to the bar, he’s worked up a nice sweat in the cool autumn air, and the slightly chilled bar is a relief. Mad Sweeney hasn’t even finished sliding into his seat when Grimnir speaks.

“You’re late.” His voice is unusually tense, and Mad Sweeney wonders if the New Gods are starting to get to him again. Mad Sweeney shrugs.

“He’ll be here tomorrow,” Grimnir warns, and Mad Sweeney stiffens. There’s only one “He” that Grimnir’s been waiting for. “I presume you’ll handle it?”

Grimnir’s eyes are searching his, looking for any sign of weakness, any sign that Mad Sweeney’s commitment has flagged. His eyes are sharp and cutting, like broken glass, but Mad Sweeney’s bled plenty in his time.

“Yeah,” Mad Sweeney says. “I’ll handle it.”

Grimnir watches him for another moment, then nods. “Afterwards, I’ll have need of you again. There’s some things I need to set up.”

“Understood,” Mad Sweeney says. He wants a drink, desperately.

“You’ve been on vacation long enough, don’t you think?” Grimnir says then, pleasantly. Grimnir is always pleasant when he’s getting exactly what he wants.

“Yeah,” Mad Sweeney agrees. They drink together quietly while Grimnir lays out his plans. Mad Sweeney forgets the beer on the way home, and later Laura, curled up against him on the couch as they watch mindless reality television, pulls out a chest hair in punishment and laughs when he bitches about it.

 

The thing about it is – Mad Sweeney has long made peace with his own selfishness. It’s part of what he is. Sometimes he wonders if he was a better man than this, once.

(He sincerely doubts it.)

 

In the morning, Mad Sweeney does what he said he would. He knows Laura McCabe, knows her well enough to convince her to miss work to stay in bed with him for the evening. He has a very convincing mouth, after all.

During, he doesn’t think of the man she should be meeting or the god that has a plan for her. He doesn’t think of the way she dismisses him when he truly, honestly, tells her he’s a leprechaun for the tenth time and lays part of his hoard in her lap. He doesn’t think about the way they’re supposed to meet, long from now, her eyes begging up at him while she quite literally chokes on another man’s cock. He doesn’t think about the way she sometimes looks out at her backyard, to the hot tub they rarely use, her face carefully blank like the first night she took him home.

Instead he pulls her to him, fucks her until she out and out screams his name.

The next morning, her voice is hoarse and the newspaper with her would-be husband’s casino robbery headline goes in the trash without a second thought.

 

Grimnir’s messenger shows up soon after Mad Sweeney finds confirmation of his success. His time is up, he thinks distantly. Whatever this is - whatever strange purgatory he’s been living in - has come to an end. Now it’s time to move on.

 

The preparation for his departure takes longer than expected, but the days rush forward as if determined to make up for lost time. It’s a week almost to the day before he’s finally gotten everything ready to leave.

He makes the decision the night before to tell her he’ll be out on a job. It’s technically true, although he has no intention of coming back from it. The important thing is that she knows he’s leaving -- the last thing he needs is a missing person alert out while he’s traveling the country.

(In truth, he knows better - Laura McCabe would never send out the search dogs for _him_ )

For all her flaws, however, Laura has never been a stupid woman, and he can tell she knows that something is off.

“If you’re going to use my house as a home base, you can at least contribute to rent, now that you have a job like the rest of us.”

She’s watching him carefully when she says it, her eyes tracking his motions like a cat. Maybe she thinks he’ll refuse -- another time he would just to piss her off, if he’s honest -- but he has to swallow down the truth: it’s all irrelevant. Her house was never _home_ , and she was never _his_. They owe nothing to each other, and she’ll hate him when all is said and done. For good reason, too.

“Trying to screw me out of my hard-won money?” He says instead. It’s the correct thing to say -- immediately she relaxes, an almost-smile pulling at her mouth before she frowns at him.

“You’re the freeloader, here,” she says, pointedly.

They squabble amiably, and when night comes, he doesn’t sleep.

 

The dawn comes and with it so does the reverberation of ravencall magically loud at the edge of his senses.

“I’m coming, damn you,” he mutters, getting up earlier than usual to make coffee before he heads out. Laura grumbles at him from beneath the covers but she’s an even earlier riser than he, most days, and he knows she’ll be up soon despite her irritated murmuring. He heads to the kitchen, stubbing his toe on a chair as he goes. He’s still cursing when he looks out the kitchen window to see Huginn staring at him.

_Woden waits._

“I’ll be along shortly,” Mad Sweeney says. “Don’t need to be waiting ‘round for me.”

Huginn flaps his wings. _Do not tarry. There is much yet to do, Mad One._

“Yeah, yeah,” Mad Sweeney says. “Let a man break his fast first.”

Mad Sweeney can feel the disapproval radiating off the damned bird, but he turns away. He may work for Grimnir, but he’s not his _man_. Mad Sweeney knows the plan. He doesn’t need to be watched like a child.

Mad Sweeney is finishing up breakfast -- a stack of pancakes near as tall as his hand, for both of them, when Laura finally stumbles her way out of the bedroom.

“Coffee,” she demands, one hand already reaching out while the other cradles her head.

“What’s the magic word?”

“Please hand me the _fucking coffee_ ,” she says, and he does without further comment. She wraps both hands against the mug, protected from the heat by a fuzzy hand-knit cozy, and takes a long pull. He shakes his head at her as she winces and burns her tongue, places butter and syrup on the table before passing along her plate. Laura tucks into the food immediately, still not quite awake despite the initial sip.

“You’re up early,” she says after a few moments. Mad Sweeney looks up from his food -- he’s not going to give up a good meal, no matter how his stomach is twisting in knots -- and swallows.

“Heading on today,” he says, “remember?”

“Good riddance,” she says, pulling the newspaper towards her, tilting her head down as if to read. Studiously, she ignores him, pulling out a pen and flipping to the comics section and the daily puzzles hidden behind.

He watches her carefully as she does so, the way she’s biting at her lip, the too-tight grip on her pen. He’s already found the lunch she packed for him last night waiting in the fridge. It’s shitty timing, for her to be a decent human being for once. He rises from the table with a sigh, picking up their plates and washing them in the sink. He pulls his lunch from the fridge, checks that his pack is still resting next to the door. He’s got everything he needs. More than, really. There’s nothing left for him here but the woman sitting down at the kitchen table, the dead girl walking. He clears his throat.

Laura’s eyes flicker up towards him, her eyebrows pulled together in consternation.

“What,” she says flatly, confusion making her irritable.

“You’re not half-bad,” he tells her. The words feel thick on his tongue, not quite right. But the right words aren’t there, don’t exist. Laura rolls her eyes at him and turns back to her paper, pen making small marks as she solves the daily sudoku.

“Go make yourself useful for once, Carrot Top,” she says.

He looks at her for a moment, recording her to memory. Baggy shirt, messy hair worn long, eyebrows pulled together in concentration. Small and slender against the backdrop of the kitchen, bare feet tapping against the floor without rhythm. Pretty, sometimes. Infuriating, most times. A girl, completely and unrepentantly human.

Suddenly, Eorann comes to mind for the first time in decades. It had been better, after, for her, hadn’t it?

Impulsively, Mad Sweeney leans down. He presses his lips to the side of her head, leaving behind a mark of brilliant gold that he knows she cannot see.

(If the last eight months have shown him anything, it’s that the girl is willfully, painfully blind.)

It’s what’s best, he convinces himself. At the very least she deserves his blessing for her hospitality, begrudging though it was.

As he leaves through the doorway, he glances one more time at her and the mark, slowly fading in brilliance to pulse lightly at the corner of where her hair meets her temple. The next time he sees it, he thinks, the voice far away in his own mind, it’ll be half-splattered over the asphalt of highway 87. He feels the Kingsgold hum to him, resonating in his bones.

Mad Sweeney leaves.

 

Grimnir has already left by the time Mad Sweeney arrives at the bar. The same grey-eyed bartender as always gives Mad Sweeney a drink on the house and a note (“to freedom” it says, in part), and Mad Sweeney reads it while he drinks. He nearly smashes the glass of whiskey against the wall once he finishes. The old fucking god is trying to get him killed before his time. Mad Sweeney would bet his fucking hoard on it.

(He’s already living on borrowed time, but a man’s got to have a _fucking line_ , no matter how many battles he’s fought or run from or how much madness he holds in the cradle of his palms)

Mad Sweeney’s barely pulled his temper together when he finds Geri and Freki waiting for him as he exits the bar, headache already building. The wolves pace around him as they meet him, too large and too wild to ever be mistaken for dogs, no matter how tall Mad Sweeney may be. Magic shimmers around them, lingering on their coats, keeping them from human sight. _We follow, we hunt_ , they inform him when they capture his attention. Their voices sound like tearing flesh.

“What?”

The wolves tilt their heads, coming to a sudden stop. _You are visiting the Phantom Queen, yes?_ Their voices are impatient, as if he is an obstinate child. _We are hungry. We will follow. We will hunt_.

“Don’t bother,” Mad Sweeney says. “I don’t need Grimnir’s pet rats watching my every-fucking-move.”

Freki snaps his jaws at him, saliva whipping out to hit Mad Sweeney in the face. Mad Sweeney wipes it off, unable and unwilling to keep the disgust off his face. _Ungrateful. One-eyed wastes his time with you._

Geri shakes his large, shaggy head. _Let the leprechaun die in the green. Highest will not care now._ Geri pauses, then adds. _We will visit Ostara. Ostara has rabbits._

Freki’s lips pull back into a mockery of a grin. _The leprechaun will die,_ he agrees, _his body laid out for us to eat. One-eyed will see. We will hunt._

 _Ostara first,_ Geri reprimands, and Freki huffs in irritation. Geri rubs against the recalcitrant wolf and its shoulders slump in sullen defeat. The wolves turn their back to him, tails swishing at him disdainfully before the pair break out into a run.

“Fucking wolves,” Mad Sweeney mutters, “ _shit_.” He’ll have to keep an eye out for them, now. He’s spent too long allowing his temper to take hold of his tongue and now the habit is coming back to bite him in the ass.

The vacation is over, he reminds himself. He doesn’t get to be comfortable anymore.

 

He has a list of gods to visit and offers to make near as long as himself, so there’s not much point in putting the first one off, no matter how much his gut tells him to. There’s no forest here, though, no trough of ancient magic to make slipping through to the other side easier. He’s no god, all easy power and arrogance, and he’s rusty to boot. He’s man enough to admit he needs some help.

Mad Sweeney drives three days in a stolen sedan to California to visit a tree he considers an old friend. He can feel its energy almost as soon as he crosses into the Inyo National Forest, its natural magic leaking into the air from miles away. He pulls over off of the closest road and leaves the stolen car behind, walking the remaining few miles and soaking in the residual magic.

“Methuselah,” Mad Sweeney says, when the ancient tree finally comes within reach. No doubt it has known he was here since he drove past the threshold. “Looks like the druids have been keeping you well.”

The tree groans in greeting, its magic warm and welcoming against Mad Sweeney’s palm as he lays it on the ancient tree’s bark. Of all the old gods Mad Sweeney has met -- and Methuselah is older than most -- Methuselah is the least dickish. Mad Sweeney is then confronted with a vision of himself, long-haired and grinning. The memory is calm and steady, like the god providing it. It has to be at least a century old. Methuselah vibrates underneath his hand, the bark scratching his palm in faint admonishment.

Mad Sweeney can feel a smile pulling at his mouth against his will. “Sorry it’s been so long,” he says quietly. “I need a favor, old friend.” The tree hums against him.

Something in the air shifts and pulls, becoming lighter. The Kingsgold hums in Mad Sweeney’s head, and he can hear music, babbling brooks and birdsong and the rustle of trees all in a mighty orchestra. It rises to a crescendo and the horizon _splits_ before him. Mad Sweeney can see the _other_ , then, greener and clearer and brighter than he remembers. He pats Methuselah twice gratefully, grits his teeth. This is going to hurt.

Quickly, Mad Sweeney slips through the veil between worlds, his form twisting with the crack of broken bone. His scream transforms as he does, becoming a loud echoing screech. The pain of his transformative curse, so rarely willing, crackles like lightning through his new, lighter body. Feathers bubble and burst through his skin, spraying blood on the familiar green grass suddenly underneath his claws.

He had forgotten this sensation, forgotten this long-held form. The echo of madness presses against the back of his mind, the pending embrace of another old friend that he’s not yet ready to greet. Though, considering who he’s going to be meeting -- well, perhaps embracing madness again would not be so terrible.

Mad Sweeney spreads his new-old wings, sharp pain settling into a deep ache. He rises quickly into flight, his forward momentum pushing him past the tree-lined clearing he stepped into, past miles of forest until he finds a wide river and rolling hills beyond, achingly familiar. He lands next to a massive boulder, his crow body bulging grotesquely as his man-shape bursts out of its back like a lanced boil. Naked and bloody, Mad Sweeney dips into the river, washing himself. Behind him, the body of Cu Chulainn is propped up against the ancient stone, his intestines spilled over, looped and holding the man fast.

Close. He’s very close, now. Mad Sweeney shudders.

 

Mad Sweeney walks the remaining distance on foot. To fly would perhaps imply he feels himself above her, and Mad Sweeney is desperate to keep from causing offense. Given who she is, she already hates him enough, he figures. Grimnir’s mission is a suicide run, but he’s not ready to die just yet. Not here.

Mad Sweeney knows the moment she senses his presence. The fair forest shimmers and twists in front of him, becoming a familiar vision of battle. His foot splashes through a puddle of blood, heat washing over him as fire reflects on armored bodies spread across the ground. Screams of the dying partner with the grand clash of iron against iron, the sound of a bell ringing louder and louder to the rhythm of death. Madness closes in, circling his mind like a hound and he thinks of Ronan, of the blind rage and fear. He almost vomits onto the battlefield.

But it isn’t real, he reminds himself. Or not so real as to touch him, not yet. Mad Sweeney opens his eyes, closed unconsciously, and pulls down the hands cradling his head. He scours the battlefield, forcing himself to _see_.

There. A wolf, larger than any in reality, proud and stern on the hill above. She watches him, intelligence shining in her eyes. Her mouth curls up in a sneer.

Mad Sweeney moves forward, pushing back against the phantom sensations of heat and blood and metal. He climbs the hill despite himself, step by traitorous step, until he reaches the top. The wolf stares down at him, a growl rumbling through her thick chest. The sound cuts through chaos of battle, and like a fiddle string pulling too tight, everything _snaps_ , sharp and sudden.

Silence.

Mad Sweeney sucks in a breath, too loud, and falls to his knees.

The wolf _shifts_ \-- eel, cow, crow, one woman to three to one again before she settles, naked, into a young woman’s form. Her dark hair spills over her shoulders, her lips red and perfect, dark as clotted blood. Her eyes, black and fathomless, seem to absorb light. Even after all the centuries, she is still the most terrifyingly beautiful woman Mad Sweeney has ever seen.

“My queen,” he says.

The Morrigan scoffs, her voice filled with disdain. “Not for an age, coward.”

Mad Sweeney clenches his fist behind his back and says nothing. What would he say?  _H_ _ow's the craic?_

Please.

“What are you doing here?” The Morrigan says, and Mad Sweeney thinks, briefly, of how impatience can sound almost like fondness in one woman and like death in another. He refocuses.

“Grimnir asked me to stop by. Thought you might prefer a familiar face,” he lies easily. The truth as far as Mad Sweeney knows is that Grimnir hates the raven bitch and would rather see the Morrigan dead than let her prophetic gaze sweep over him. But that’s not exactly the most diplomatic thing to say to a goddess with dominion over war, destiny, and death.

“He was wrong,” the Morrigan says. “Looking at you makes me sick.”

“You’re no sight for sore eyes, either, but a job’s a job,” he snaps.

Immediately, he knows it’s the wrong thing to say. He’s grown too used to the back-and-forth, has forgotten the danger inherent to better-remembered gods, let alone one as powerful as the Morrigan. Shit. He used to be considered charming, once.

The Morrigan goes still. Mad Sweeney can feel the hairs standing up at the back of his neck. He bites his tongue, too late, and can taste the bitter iron in it.

“I mean - ah, _fuck_ ,” he tries to correct, but the damage is done.

“You dare speak that way to _me_?” The Morrigan says, low.

Mad Sweeney rises slowly to standing. “Now, I don’t mean to offend,” he says, carefully, hands spread wide in supplication. “I just meant we don’t need to drag things out, given our history and all--”

“Your very presence is a slap in the face,” she hisses. “A stolen sacrifice, a useless hourglass broken upon my table.” Her voice suddenly rises in pitch, her fury breaking like thunder in his ears. “ _I should strike you down where you stand_.”

The Morrigan’s magic swirls with piercing cold and deadly heat, a cacophonous and constantly changing attack against his senses. Hers is no empty threat -- he can feel the Morrigan’s magic begin to sharpen into deadly purpose. The Kingsgold screams in his head louder than the Morrigan’s rage, and he can think of nothing, nothing at all to say.

The Morrigan takes a step forward. “Shall I sing a song for you?” She says, her voice suddenly level. Mad Sweeney recognizes the tone, one of Laura’s most dangerous. For a second he has to resist the incredulous desire to laugh, nerves spilling out of his mouth unwilling. The Morrigan continues to approach him, a finger reaching out to tap thoughtfully at the full center of her bottom lip, “There are so many -- but perhaps the one I sang for the Fomorians?”

Her eyes are cutting, full of hatred. “Shall I sing a funeral dirge for you, _King_?”

“Running away, that wasn’t my fault--” he starts to say. Her hand flashes with movement and she punches him in the throat. He feels the pain hit like lightning, his free breath suddenly turned to sharp choked gasps.

“ _Jesus fucking Christ_.”

“Wrong god,” the Morrigan snarls. Her hand, now fully around his throat, begins to squeeze. “You fail to take responsibility for your actions, Suibhne. It is your least endearing trait.”

“Wait, don’t,” he says, but she doesn’t speak, only tightens her grip. Slowly, inexorably, all while staring him dead in the eyes. As he scrabbles uselessly at her hand, trying to pry it off, Mad Sweeney knows she will enjoy seeing the light flicker out.

_Fuck all that._

“Seems a waste, doesn’t it?” He chokes out, too desperate to keep the bitter edge he intends. “To end it all, without even the battle you were owed?”

“Is it?” The Morrigan says. “The only waste I see is you.”

“When was the last time someone fought for your blessing?” Mad Sweeney argues with his last gasps of air, his voice a barely understandable wheeze. “The last time a man died with your name on his lips?”

The Morrigan scoffs. “You’re a liar, through and through, _Suibhne Geilt_.”

But her grip loosens just enough, and Mad Sweeney pulls in a ragged breath.

“I owe a battle like no living man has ever seen,” he says, “I might be long-lived, but I can still die -- with your name on my tongue, if you let me.” Mad Sweeney releases his death grip on the Morrigan’s wrist, pulling forth every bit of defiance he’s ever felt, every _fuck you_ he’s ever thought, and places it firmly on his face for her to read in bold print. “Look for yourself, if you don’t believe me.”

“So noble,” the Morrigan says with a sneer. Her eyes flash. “Let’s see then, shall we?”

The Morrigan’s hand on his throat is removed, replaced with the other, too gentle, at the center of his forehead. Almost as soon as her skin touches his, her eyes just barely starting to fog over with the force of her magic, the Morrigan snatches her hand back as if stung, her face a cracked mask of confusion. Mad Sweeney sucks in a breath. _Oh shit._

Something heated begins to build in the air, the Morrigan’s eyes sparking with anger as her hand snaps back out like a snake. Her grip is painfully tight, no longer gentle as she covers his mouth to crush his jaw, nails digging so deep into his cheeks they draw blood. Her eyes fix onto his, mesmerizing, seeing into him and beyond him all at once, and Mad Sweeney can’t breath for all the static in the air. A hiss escapes the Morrigan’s mouth, seemingly unconscious as her eyes widen with surprise. Mad Sweeney has no idea what she sees, what vision has come to her as his blood coats her nails. Her hand continues to crush his face between her delicate fingers, and Mad Sweeney has enough time to wonder if Eostre can heal a god-broken jaw before the Morrigan’s nails finish digging through the meat of his cheek and into his mouth, and she blinks.

The Morrigan blinks, and then --

She laughs.

Her hand releases him, the nails pulling from his skin with a slick sound, leaving not a single puncture wound but all the pain behind.

“Oh, you poor fool,” she says, dark humor pulling at the edges of her mouth. “You have no idea, do you?”

Mad Sweeney is, quite frankly, bewildered. Visions of the future have rarely brought him any sort of goodwill, and he has no idea what the Morrigan saw, no idea of what sort of dark fate might make the Morrigan laugh. He’s lived for so long with only his luck and his smart mouth to guide him, but he has nothing clever to say now. Regardless, he thinks, at least one of the two seems to have stuck with him.

Meanwhile the Morrigan, long used to men’s awe-stricken silence in her presence, continues to chuckle. “No small wonder. You never were any good at prophecy,” she recalls, bemused.

She flicks her dark hair over her shoulder with her bloodied hand and turns from him. With a flick of her wrist, dark armor appears on the ground beside her, carefully placed on a tapestry so old Mad Sweeney can barely make out the markings. The Morrigan ripples, suddenly three, middle-aged and redressed in a black shirt and breeches. They sit and pull the well-used metal pieces over to begin the process of cleaning it.

“Why should I play Woden’s games?” Macha asks, not bothering to look at him. As if she had never tried to choke the life out of him, never read his fate and laughed. A crow’s foot dangles from each of their necks above the armor, blue tattoos crawling across their skin.

Mad Sweeney’s thoughts swirl. There’s no point to asking a goddess of battle and prophecy how she knows what she does, and he’s already on thin fucking ice. The Kingsgold sings soothingly to him, easing the headache building from the sudden release of tension and magic from the air.

“I already said,” Mad Sweeney says, raising an idle hand to his face and throat to test for injuries. His voice is still a mess of sandpaper and gravel. ”It’s going to be the biggest battle fought in the modern age, since the old gods were turned into faerie tales and myth.”

Badb Catha mouth flattens into a straight line-- she, too, despises what ye olde church and the good General Mills have done over time-- but continues to rub oil into aged metal. “And what value is that to _me_?”

Mad Sweeney scowls, rubbing his throat irritably. It’s going to bruise, no doubt. Hurt for a week. “You’ll finally get what you’ve been waiting to see,” he says.

The three look up, then, dark eyes glittering. Their responding smiles are a sharp, wicked thing.

“I look forward to it,” Némain purrs.

 

True to his prediction, the bruises last. They’ve barely faded into a sickly green-yellow smile around his throat by the time he drives across the Kentucky state line. Eostre will probably help him heal the lingering stiffness. She’s a pushover, these days, can’t afford not to be, and she owes him a favor besides. If not, though, at least one Jesus will -- Mad Sweeney’s invoked him enough the past few days.

Then he smells wolf, and drives to New York, instead.

 

Mad Sweeney arrives in New York in the afternoon, dropping the car off at a run-down motel connected to a cheap bar next door. He hails a taxi, because he’ll be fucked if he’s going to bother with driving the car any farther into the city, and it arrives 30 minutes late.

“Sorry,” the cabbie says, “had to clean out the car.”

The back seat of the cab, though clean, smells of old vomit as Mad Sweeney gets in. His eyes sweep over the identification in the plastic window between them, a current license reading “Ibrahim bin Irem.” The cab driver’s beard is thick and full in the rearview mirror, and he’s wearing sunglasses at four in the afternoon.

“I don’t care,” Mad Sweeney says, turning and getting comfortable. He pulls his cap down over his eyes. “7th Ave and West 17th, wake me up when we get there.”

Unsurprisingly, the driver already knows the area. “The museum and shops are closing at five today,” he warns.

“I’m counting on it,” Mad Sweeney says. “I got no interest in watching folks circle-jerk over stolen history.”

The driver huffs.

“Human beings have short memories,” he says. “They worship the past and forget those that made it. There is no respect.”

The phrasing is odd, too familiar, and Mad Sweeney lifts his cap to look. The driver’s face is tilted towards him, a frown pulling at his mouth. The Kingsgold hums, faintly, at the edge of his senses, and Mad Sweeney can feel heat radiating off the driver in waves. The driver’s head tilts in recognition, and for a brief moment, Mad Sweeney catches fire burning at the edge of the cabbie’s sunglasses.

Mad Sweeney bares his teeth in a smile, all innuendo and sarcasm.

“Hey,” Mad Sweeney says with a jerk-off hand motion, “If I rub your bottle will’ye grant me a wish?”

The driver pulls off his sunglasses to look at Mad Sweeney properly, his eyes twin balls of fire in their sockets.

“Only if you give me a bowl of cereal and a pot of gold,” the Jinn says. “If I could grant wishes, you think I’d be driving a cab?”

Mad Sweeney snorts.

“Fuckin’ America,” Mad Sweeney says.

“Fucking America,” the Jinn echoes, the quick upturn of his lips as bitter as Mad Sweeney’s. Mad Sweeney chuckles, and pulls his cap back over his eyes to nap.

When he exits, twenty minutes later, Mad Sweeney leaves a few extra coins from his hoard and the name of Grimnir’s favorite diner on the seat behind him.

 

The Rubin Museum of Art is a sprawling thing, but Mad Sweeney finds the elephant-headed god he’s looking for easily enough. Ganesha is standing alone in the _Gateway to Himalayan Art_ exhibit staring at a copper statue barely bigger than the spread of a man’s hand. The god’s face, reflected in the glass containing a smaller version of himself, is hard to read-- Mad Sweeney’s not exactly versed in the subtleties of elephant expression-- but when Ganesha turns, his eyes crinkle into a recognizable smile.

“It has been a long time,” Ganesha says, pleasantly. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble getting here.”

He looks as healthy and strong as when Mad Sweeney last saw him, riding on that same tiny mouse of his, axe raised in the air to strike. Two of the god’s hands fold behind Ganesha’s back, the other two holding a cup and rising up into a wave, respectively.

“You’ve gotten fat,” Mad Sweeney says.

“I wish to experience the knowledge of the world. My stomach grows with each passing year to store it all,” Ganesha replies. He raises an eyebrow. “You could afford to expand your belt, Suibhne.”

“Mad Sweeney,” Mad Sweeney corrects. Ganesha shakes his head with a smile.

“You missed my birthday last year,” he says.

“Sorry,” Mad Sweeney says, not feeling sorry at all. “I was a little busy.”

“So I’ve heard,” Ganesha says pointedly, his eyes twinkling as he says it. Mad Sweeney can feel the divinity pressing against his senses, radiating good fortune. It’s already starting to cling to him, warm and gentle in a way that makes Mad Sweeney uncomfortable.

The Kingsgold purrs.

Mad Sweeney frowns. “What’s that you hear, then?”

Ganesha hums, pulling up his cup to take a sip.

“Amongst other things… I hear Odin is collecting gods,” he says, after a moment.

“Something like that,” Mad Sweeney replies. “Are you planning on being one of ‘em?”

Mad Sweeney finds that he’s curious to know the answer. Ganesha is an old god, but one still thriving. He has no reason to touch anything Grimnir has lain his hands on, is not yet feeling the competition of the New Gods as fiercely as the rest of them do. Perhaps that is where Mad Sweeney is meant to come in, be persuasive and encouraging from one wielder of luck to another, but that isn’t who Mad Sweeney is, he’s decided. He’s a messenger boy. He’s there to show up, make the offer, and hope he lives through the experience. He’s more than happy leaving Grimnir to handle the difficult cases.

As if reading his thoughts, Ganesha shakes his head. “I have no interest in participating in Odin’s war.”

Unsurprised, Mad Sweeney scowls. “Why’d you agree to meet me then?”

Ganesha’s eyes slide over to him. “Tell me first. Why are you working for such a man?”

No point in lying. Mad Sweeney’s not the type to go around sharing his business, but if anyone understands duty, it’s Ganesha.

“I ran from a fight once,” Mad Sweeney says flatly. “Cursed, I was, but still.” He laughs, bitterly. “Now I owe the Morrigan a death in glorious battle.”

“And Odin can make that battle happen,” Ganesha says.

Mad Sweeney shrugs.

Ganesha nods, turning back to contemplate his statue. He remains silent for a long while, as if lost in thought. One of his many hands drifts towards his tusk, cracked and broken.

“Sacrifice is not always a bad thing,” he says eventually, voice soft. “Sometimes keeping the promises we have made is more important than the damage to ourselves.”

Mad Sweeney says nothing. In his experience, keeping promises and making sacrifices are mutually exclusive. Certainly, he thinks, Laura McCabe would agree. But her thoughts on the matter don’t count. She’ll be dead in a year’s time, same as him.

“I met with you, Mad Sweeney, because you have many burdens ahead of you,” Ganesha says. “I thought perhaps speaking of them might lighten the load.”

Mad Sweeney startles. _He what?_

Ganesha is watching him, face open and calm. Mad Sweeney scowls, almost by reflex.

“Pah,” he says with a dismissive puff of breath, “No one wants to hear about _my_ problems.”

“I’m a good listener,” Ganesha offers.

“I’m more’n happy to keep it buried way deep inside where only drink can touch it, thanks.”

“I see. Perhaps advice on your lady friend, then?”

“ _What_?”

Mad Sweeney should not be surprised any time a god knows things they shouldn’t, but he is. Not every one of them is omnipotent. In fact, most of them aren’t. It’s why they’re in this mess in the first place. Why the _fuck_ do they all know his business?

“How’d you hear about _her_?” Mad Sweeney asks sharply.

Ganesha’s ears twitch, almost waving at him. “I’m a _very_ good listener,” he says, with a wink.

Mad Sweeney flushes angrily, his temper rising. He doesn’t do well with surprise at any time, but the mention of Laura is particularly annoying. She’s not part of his life any longer, not someone he needs advice about, and while Laura might be a stone-cold bitch, she doesn’t need random-ass gods she doesn’t even believe in stalking her in their free time.

_(Fucking hypocrite)_

Reading his face, Ganesha laughs. “Perhaps not, then!”

“Definitely fuckin’ not,” Mad Sweeney says.

Ganesha smiles at him, something knowing in his eyes, before his face shifts back into seriousness.

“In events like those in the coming days, usually _you_ would be the obstacle I’d be removing,” the god admits, “so I found myself curious. But it seems like you’re the one that could use some help this time.”

“No thanks,” Mad Sweeney snaps, but his temper is already cooling at Ganesha’s apologetic tone. He’s supposed to be on a diplomatic mission, he reminds himself. He continues. “I make my own luck well enough.”

“Mmm…still,” Ganesha says. “Call on me if you must. Perhaps I can make things easier, at some point or another.”

“I sincerely fuckin’ doubt it,” Mad Sweeney mutters. Ganesha laughs, and raises a hand to pat Mad Sweeney on the shoulder.

“Come back again,” Ganesha says. “I’ll cook for you, next time.”

 

Hours later, Mad Sweeney finds a small silver coin in his jacket pocket, a mouse stamped on either side.

 

Time moves faster than expected, travelling to recruit the list of gods Grimnir has left him. Visit after visit after visit, each evening afterwards spent ossified at the bar until he’s drunk enough to collapse into bed without feeling the cockroaches crawl over him as he sleeps. Mad Sweeney can almost hear the ticking clock in his head, and each trip through the green seems to speed it up. It’s exhausting and at most moments painfully dull. He just wants to go the fuck back to bed, but all he has is the next hotel in the months-long chain of them.

Today, he’s napping in a long-haul truck that he stole from a waystation four hours back. He’s on his way to Virginia to drop off whatever is inside, one egoistic war god’s offer to another, when his head pulses with pain and light flashes behind his eyes. Mad Sweeney doesn’t have much gift for foresight – it comes and goes as it wills, and that works just fine for him – but this vision hits him harder than any he’s had in decades.

The first thing he sees is Laura’s cat, Dummy, rising from the top of the couch to chase after a fly. The second thing he sees is Dummy falling down with hacking coughs, blackened tongue spilling out as its heart stops. The third is Laura, stepping through the front door, plastic bags hanging from her wrists, and freezing.

Mad Sweeney watches as Laura processes the lifeless animal on the floor and promptly chooses to ignore it, entering the kitchen and putting away her groceries, one by one. She leaves out the wine when she finishes, popping out the cork with easy grace. Then she pulls the lip of the bottle to her mouth and takes a long sip. Her other hand grips the kitchen counter, white-knuckled.

Time shifts, and Laura is sinking to the floor, slipping the last few inches to hit the tile hard. One hand lands the mostly-empty wine bottle beside her with a loud _clunk_ , the other not quite breaking her fall. She gasps out a curse and lets the bottle go -- it rattles, barely remaining upright, and Laura chuckles dully. She stares out into the darkness, eyes unseeing. The house is quiet, the usual groans and creaks nonexistent.

Laura pulls up her knees, brings both hands up to cover her face. In his vision, the place where his lips pressed against her temple radiates golden light, dimmer than when he left her but just as rich in color. As if from a great distance, Mad Sweeney hears the bell ring from Laura’s front door. Equally clearly, he can sense Robbie, pacing and tense, beyond it.

Eventually, slowly, the hand covering Laura’s face comes down. Wobbling slightly, eyes dry, Laura pulls herself back up to standing.

She moves towards the door.

 

Mad Sweeney blinks open his eyes. It always takes a few moments to readjust after a vision, and he’s out of practice. Brain still fuzzy from lack of sleep, he scrubs his hand over his face, trying to recenter. He’s traveling. On a job, in daylight. The vision is of Laura at night, which means either it’s already happened -- unlikely, that’s not his particular gift -- or it’s happening within the next few days.

He should leave it. Grimnir has mentioned the start of Laura’s affair with Robbie. While there had been no mention of a dead cat, he’d mentioned that Robbie had consoled Laura in her “time of need.” If not for his foul mood at the time, Mad Sweeney might have laughed, having assumed the phrase was a euphemism. Laura rarely _needed_ anyone or anything. Now he had seen for himself what Grimnir meant.

It’s the natural course of things, the future that Grimnir foresaw. He’s got no right to change it, no right to feel sick at the thought of Robbie putting his hands on her. The whole situation is more trouble than he wants to deal with, and so is she, for that matter.

But his mark on her, brilliant gold, won’t fade from his mind. Her eyes, dull, dig into his chest. The Kingsgold sings to him, soft and seductive.

_Fuck._

He turns the truck around.

 

Laura’s front door looks the same as when he first saw it, and the weight of home and time lie just as heavy on his shoulders. Parked in the driveway, he sits in his stolen white Ford Pinto wondering when Robbie will show up, if maybe he already has.

This is insane, he thinks. He shouldn’t be here. It’s sick, considering what the future holds, the role he’s meant to play. And Laura McCabe isn’t worth all the trouble, either.

But the thought keeps swirling around in his head. He’s bucked prophecy before. The consequences, such as they were, were staggering, but maybe… he doesn’t _have_ to kill her. The husband is already out of the way, no doubt caught in Grimnir’s slimy grasp, and Laura probably won’t meet him now. She definitely won’t, if Mad Sweeney sticks around. And what does Grimnir care where Mad Sweeney spends his time, so long as he still goes on Grimnir’s little recruitment missions?

Mad Sweeney may work for the god, may owe a debt, but that debt isn’t to Grimnir himself. Grimnir is not Mad Sweeney’s god, and Mad Sweeney is not another goddamn pet to be kept on a leash. Hells, now that the Morrigan has opted in, if she wants him to die so badly she can tell him where the war’s held herself, worst comes to worst.

Laura McCabe might be an asshole, but she’s still an innocent in all this godly mess. Mad Sweeney is _so so_ tired of killing innocent people, people that he or Grimnir or whoever dragged into their business. And he does still have some of his dignity left, little as it may be. Fuck it. Fuck Grimnir.

Mad Sweeney gets out of the car.

 

It takes Laura maybe a minute to swing open the door after he rings the bell. He instantly recognizes the dull drunken eyes, the sloppy wine stains on the back of her arm where she wiped her mouth. Robbie hasn’t been by yet. He can’t have been.

“ _What?_ ” Laura snaps, mouth a tight flat line as she opens the door.

Then she pauses, surprised, as her brain catches with what her eyes are telling her.

“How are even here right now?” She says, tone distant and confused. The words are just barely starting to slur together, and she leans against the door for balance. Mad Sweeney is trying to think of a way to say, _I had a prophetic vision and you looked like shit_ , when she adds, dully, “My cat just died.”

“Genuine Oirish Luck,” he says, for lack of a better explanation, though it is more or less true in these circumstances. Then he says, awkwardly, “Sorry about your hell cat.”

Hells.

Laura scoffs at him and shakes her head. She leans back, pulling at the door to let it swing wide, and drops the handle. “You might as well come in, then,” she says, leaving him to watch her back as she turns to get the bottle left behind in the kitchen.

 

He gets to burying the cat while Laura pours her remaining wine--the last from a second bottle he hadn’t seen--into a glass with a shaky hand. He grabs a shovel and a shoebox from the garage and picks a spot he remembers as being particularly sunny in the summer. He gets down to business, then, shucking off his jacket when he begins to really work up a sweat. When he’s nearly finished, Laura joins him outside, her bare feet hidden in the uncut grass.

“Is that it?” She asks him.

“Just about,” he says, and drops down to his knees to put Dummy, enclosed an old Payless box, into the newfound hole. He rises, and begins to reverse the process, shoveling dirt back over the bright orange casket. The second half of grave digging is easier than the first, and it doesn’t take Mad Sweeney long to get the cat done and buried, dislodged dirt making a mound. When it still feels incomplete, Mad Sweeney places a pile of small stones at the head, stacking them one by one.

“There,” he says.

Mad Sweeney wipes the sweat from his brow, leaves to set the shovel against the side of the house. Laura watches him, her eyes trailing him like a ghost. When he turns toward her she shuts her eyes tight, raising her glass to her mouth to take two large gulps.

He rejoins her by the graveside, rapidly cooling sweat turning his skin to gooseflesh. He rubs his arms once and coughs awkwardly. “D’you want to say anything?”

Silence echoes between them as Laura opens her eyes to look between Mad Sweeney and the recently overturned dirt. She swallows, opens her mouth. Closes it.

Mad Sweeney waits until it’s clear Laura is not going to speak. He clears his throat, bowing his head deferentially. His arm bumps into Laura’s shoulder and he can feel the shock and shudder of her skin reacting to his touch. “Dummy was a good cat,” Mad Sweeney starts, glancing at Laura out of the corner of his eye. She’s staring at the grave, her wineglass in a white-knuckled grip. She doesn’t look at him.

“A good companion in lonely times,” he continues after a moment, turning his eyes back to the grave. “She sang to the moon and warmed in the sun. She gave chase to the creatures of the earth. We celebrate her spirit and drink to her travel to the Green Lands. Sláinte.”

Mad Sweeney fishes a flask out of his pocket. He raises it to the small cairn and takes a sip. The whiskey burns as it goes down.

“I didn’t want a cat,” Laura says after a moment. Her voice is distant, detached. “My mom got her for me, said that no one else wanted her. It was too much of a hassle to take her back, so I didn’t.”

“I’m fine with being alone,” Laura continues. “But even though it was more expensive to buy her food, and I had to take her to the vet, and she kept trying to eat the plants – it was nice.” Laura pauses.

“It was nice,” she repeats. Then she finishes her wine with a long gulp, and turns back to enter the house.

 

Mad Sweeney finds her again in the kitchen, digging through her silverware drawer for a corkscrew to open a third bottle of wine from her pantry. It slips through her fingers when she finds it and clatters to the ground. She leans down to get it and stumbles, nearly falling until a flailing hand grabs onto Mad Sweeney’s shirt and he hoists her back up to standing by the arm.

“I think you’ve had enough,” Mad Sweeney says.

“Have I?” Laura says, “You’re one to talk.”

Mad Sweeney scowls reflexively. “Let’s just get you to fuckin’ bed, alright?”

“Fine,” she says. “Fine.”

He half-shoves her to room, using both hands to hold her steady as Laura deliberately releases all control of the upper half of her body. The bed is a tangled mess, and Mad Sweeney has to _yank_ the covers from out underneath her when Laura flops face down on top of them.

“What the hell are you doing?” She says, face buried in her pillow. She flips over, hands coming to rest on her stomach as she watches him.

“I have no fuckin’ idea,” he says, and whips Laura’s comforter up and over her head so he doesn’t have to look at her, the thick duvet floating down to cover her body.

Laura’s still watching him when the comforter settles, and Mad Sweeney can’t seem to hold her gaze, strangely curious.

“Er, goodnight, then,” he mutters, and turns to leave.

Laura’s hand snaps out, barely able to find his arm in time. She pulls, using too much force, and he stumbles back around. He glares at her, incredulous.

“What now?”

“Stay,” she says.

The surprise is like a shock to the system. “What?” he says again.

“Did I fucking stutter?” She says, but when he doesn’t respond she turns away from him, her back curving as she curls in on herself.

“Nevermind. Do what you want.”

 _Well, shit,_ Mad Sweeney thinks. There’s only one right answer to that. He sighs.

Lifting the covers up with one hand, Mad Sweeney climbs into the bed next to Laura, turning to face the ceiling. The bed dips under his weight, and Laura slides back to rest against his side, the points where the long line of her back touch his arm radiating heat.

After a moment Laura flips over, stretching her body back out to press against his. She scootches forward, lifting her head to rest against his chest, her hand coming up to rest on his sternum. They breathe together in silence, and Mad Sweeney wonders what the fuck this all means.

“You better have been in a coma,” she says in the quiet.

Then, “Don’t get dirt on my bed.”

Her words slur together as she speaks, the Kingsgold singing a low soothing song behind her words. Mad Sweeney pulls Laura closer to him, wrapping his arm around her and gripping her tight. She digs her forehead into his chest, and suddenly Mad Sweeney feels his skin grow hot and wet as tears begin to spill onto his shirt.

Laura cries, openly and hard until she finally falls asleep, and Mad Sweeney thinks, _shit._

 

Hungover Laura is not so forgiving, he finds.

Laura is awake first, as usual, and when he comes to he finds her staring at him, face resting in one hand.

“Don’t you have a job to get back to?” She asks. The question is direct, but not particularly aggressive. Her face is arranged in an expression of mild curiosity, as if she is asking him for the time and not why he’s been gone for months with no real explanation.

Mad Sweeney hesitates. He’s a good liar to be sure, but even he wouldn’t believe his bullshit this time.

“The…job took longer than expected,” he says, carefully, “but I’m finished with it for now.” He looks her in the eye. “Not to say I won’t have more work in the future, but – it shouldn’t take as long."

“And you want to stay here?” Laura asks, her face unreadable.

Mad Sweeney leans over to dig into his coat pocket on the floor, pulling out a wad of cash. “As long as I contribute to rent, right?” He pauses, unsure of how to say the next part, only sure that he needs to. The Kingsgold croons to him, and he sucks in a breath. “I’m not done with you yet, Laura McCabe,” he says, and it’s the purest, most honest truth he knows she’ll accept.

Silence. Then Laura takes the money, nods. “Fine,” she says.

Mad Sweeney nods in return, and the two stare at each other until Laura finally sighs and gets up with a stretch. “I’m going to go make breakfast,” she says. “Bacon?”

Mad Sweeney nods, not sure what to do with her easy acceptance, and then she says:

“I fucked someone while you were gone.”

And:

“Welcome back.”

Then she’s exiting the room without looking back, hair a wild tangle as she pulls it up in order to cook.

He probably needs to find out who it was. Make sure it’s not Robbie, or, gods forbid, the guy he was meant to keep her away from. Unlikely, but destiny magic has its own ineffable way of fucking things up. It’s important to know, important to take care of before things go so off track they can’t come back.

He won’t though, Mad Sweeney realizes. Go looking.

In the bed, Mad Sweeney covers his eyes and laughs. He should’ve known better.

Of the two of them, Laura always had the bigger capacity for cruelty.

 

Things settle in eventually. Mad Sweeney makes his excuses to Grimnir --

(“ _I had a vision.”_

_“Did you now?”)_

\-- who hums and haws, but says nothing about it in the end. So long as Mad Sweeney does what needs to be done, Grimnir will - most likely - leave him alone. After all, no matter what his wolves say, Grimnir does not have so many allies that he can afford to alienate the few he has left. Until Grimnir's plan starts coming together, until he gathers the Old Gods to rally at his side, Mad Sweeney is not yet disposable. It might be a ticking clock, but Mad Sweeney is perfectly willing to wait it out for as long as he can.

In the meantime, however, he’s trying to find his way into a routine, back into the strange sort of normalcy that pervaded every moment he lived here before. It takes time. Laura is as distant as when he first met her, and there’s a dull sort of surprise in her eyes each time he goes out on a job and comes back when he says he will. The way she talks to him, too-- she’s not _polite_ , exactly, she’s as callous and rude as ever-- but the temper he expects, the sharp words they used to fling at one another, they aren’t there. They sleep in the same bed, bodies tangled together, but they don’t have sex. There’s a strange tension building that he can’t quite wrap his head around, a frustration he doesn’t know how to express with words.

He’s not an idiot, though, and he can only delude himself so much. He knows what it is he wants. But he can’t help but think it’s probably for the best that whatever strange kind of intimacy they’ve built crumbles between them. He knows how these kinds of stories end, and the fact that it’s Laura fucking McCabe featured in this one doesn’t make him any more confident. Even so, it’s probably just a matter of time. Laura still drives him batshit nuts.

Dammit. If she hadn’t been such a good woman, Eorann would probably fucking laugh to see him now.

 

It doesn’t take long for things to come to a head. Like everything else between them, it starts with Laura being a fuckin’ cunt and a half.

“ _Seriously?_ ”

Mad Sweeney is lounging on the couch, aimlessly flicking through channels when Laura storms in, pulling the navy shirt she’s wearing away from her body and holding it out wide. There’s a giant spot of almost-baby blue featuring on the stretched cloth, surrounded by other faded spots.

“You got bleach all over my goddamn shirt,” she says, scowling at him.

“Had blood on mine.” Mad Sweeney says, shrugging. He moves his head to try to see around her. “Don’t leave your shit out if you don’t want me to do the washing. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Laura moves to remain in front of him, blocking his view. “You wouldn’t have blood on your shirt if you didn’t keep pissing off security at work,” she says, crossing her arms. “I should let Mal beat the shit of you for real.”

Mad Sweeney gives up, dropping the remote onto the seat next to him. He glances up to look Laura in the eyes, her head not even half a foot above his, even as his ass sinks low into the couch cushions. “It’s all just a bit of fun,” he says. “Barely even a real fight.”

“Look at this,” Laura says, gripping her shirt in her fist and shaking it at him. When he rolls his eyes, she whips off her shirt and throws it in his face.

“I’ll show you a real fight,” she says, crossing her arms again. Out of one eye, he can see her breasts come up, barely pushed up over the meat of her arms, but he refuses to be distracted.

Mad Sweeney grabs the shirt off his face and stands. A man on the television advertises a shamwow, Laura’s shadow turning the fluorescent commercial more reasonable colors. “You make a lot of fuckin’ threats, dead girl.”

Laura’s face darkens dangerously, shifting from frustration to actual anger, and Mad Sweeney is hit with the realization that he’s just said the wrong thing. Not on purpose, this time. “And you make a lot of fucking mistakes. Are you by chance pretending not to know how to do basic shit or are you really this much of an idiot?”

Aw, shit. He’s annoyed, but he doesn’t _actually_ want to escalate this, and he damn well  doesn’t like the growing thunder in Laura’s eyes. Before, maybe he would have pushed things--it made for great sex--but Mad Sweeney can’t help but think he’s on thin fucking ice these days. He clenches his hands and doesn’t know what to do with them.

It’s stupid, so stupid, but he can’t think of anything else to do.

Mad Sweeney rips off his own shirt and flings it at her face.

“ _What the fu--_ ”

Laura yanks the shirt off of her head.

“Seriously? _Seriously?_ ” She repeats. “Are you a child?”

But the dangerous tone has vanished from her voice.

“What, you think you’re the only one who can argue tits out?” He says, defiantly mimicking her crossed arms.

Laura looks down, as if for the realizing she’s topless for the first time. Her back, still tense, relaxes just a little.

“Look,” Mad Sweeney says, releasing his hands to his sides. ”I didn’t mean to mess up your shirt. I’ll buy you a new one, alright?”

“You better,” Laura says, insistent. “I really liked that one.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Laura stares at him, then rolls her eyes with a huff. She starts to turn as if to leave, then stops.

“So you decided to _throw your shirt_ at me?”

Mad Sweeney shrugs.

“You’re a moron,” she says, mouth twitching upwards. She leans down and presses her lips to his.

Things are better, after that. Arguments and sex and all.

 

“I was married once,” he tells her out of the blue a month or two later. Technically he’s been married several times over the centuries, when he was younger and still prone to romanticism, but Eorann was first, was the only one he was truly human for. It’s another one of those little truths he spreads around, not really expecting Laura to really believe or respond to, but this one is close enough to the realities she expects that for once she does.

“What happened?”

She sounds as if she doesn’t really care about the answer, and given that their bodies are still sticky from sex, she might not. Laura’s never been the jealous type.

“I ran away,” he says. “She married another man.”

A simplification, but Laura’s too stubborn to believe _I turned into a bird for years and when I came back she wanted to leave him to join me in the forest, but I told her not to_ , no matter how fucked-out she is.

Laura is silent for a long time. He has no idea what she’s thinking. Making comparisons, probably. But when she finally speaks again, it surprises him.

“Why were you there,” she asks him, “that night?”

He figures she’s talking about the second time, not their first calculated meeting, and he sucks in a breath. He remembers his vision of her with the kind of clarity only magic can bring, but he has no idea how to answer her. He barely thought he would get this far, was expecting a _bullshit_ or _no surprise someone divorced_ **_you_ ** to be the end _._ He tries to fake it, tries to joke, but she has no patience for his deflection and eventually, he tells her the truth:

“I saw you,” he says, turning to look at her for the first time since he started this conversation. Laura’s head is tilted up to look at him, and there’s something in her eyes, a vulnerability that she rarely expresses. She looks so _young_ , and Mad Sweeney is struck with the insane, irrational urge to trace the curve of her cheek, to push his forehead against hers and reassure them both that despite being a dead girl walking she’s still here – and so is he.

 _You shine_ , he thinks, and doesn’t do anything at all.

 

It’s much, much later, a lifetime, when he comes to the kitchen one morning and Laura asks him to sit down.

“Are you pregnant?”

He isn’t sure how to feel if she is. It’s nothing they’ve ever talked about -- Eorann had borne him sons and daughters, and he’d had a handful more here and there in the centuries since, but the last of his line was killed long before Laura was ever born.

The issue is tabled when Laura levels an unimpressed stare at him and Mad Sweeney takes it as a negative. He can’t imagine what else would cause the need-to-talk routine, though.

“Where’s the body, then?” He asks, only half-joking. “Better to chop it up and bury the pieces separately.”

Then he finds out that Grimnir called her, and the world goes tits up.

 

Grimnir called her. _Grimnir called her._ On a _phone_. Where any and all New Gods could hear him, and the one-eyed god did it anyway.

They are officially fucked arseways on levels beyond all comprehension, and now Laura wants to rob a goddamn casino.

“I’ve been eliminating options one by one until I came to my final decision,” she says while his thoughts spin wildly out of control, “so while this may sound irrational, I have completely rational reasons for wanting to do it.”

He can’t think of a single goddamn one.

He also can’t help but stare at her. He might be called Mad Sweeney, but he is suddenly, desperately sure that he is the only sane one in the room. Realistically, Mad Sweeney knows Laura has no idea of the danger she’s in, but that doesn’t make any of it easier.

“Do _what_ , get yourself killed?”

“I’m not planning on dying anytime soon,” she says flippantly. “Don’t pretend like you’re too good to steal from my job when you let me pay for your shit for over a year.”

He’s still trying to figure out how to begin to address that when she adds: “I want more than this,”

And:

“To stay here, day after day, living the rest of my life in this shitty town with a shitty job – that would represent failure to me.”

 _That’s what being human is_ , he thinks. _That would be better_.

Laura doesn’t know that when it comes to gods and monsters and myth, failure can be much, much worse.

He argues back and forth with her, but Laura’s always been stubborn. He’s not even surprised when she finally asks it, the question he’s spent so long trying not to answer: “What magic power could he possibly have to make you terrified of him?”

The truth of it is, he’s not. Not really. But _she_ should be, should have a little more self-fucking-preservation, and she has no idea why. Has _refused_ to see why. Has refused to acknowledge the truth of a universe she doesn’t understand.

He’s told her the truth so many times now. So many times he’s grown exhausted of disbelief, of Laura’s aimless apathy towards everything he really is. He might be a bastard, but at least he’s always believed Laura when she states that she fucking _exists_. Or he would, if she didn’t find such a statement (relatively) self-evident.

But this is important. This is beyond his own ego and beyond convincing her to put out an offering of milk or two, just for balance. So he tells her the truth again.

“He’s a god,” Mad Sweeney says.

“What?”

“He’s. A fucking. God,” he repeats, each word sharpened to a point. “And he can get me something I want.”

It starts, then. A derogatory curl pulling up Laura’s mouth, a roll of the eyes. Her arms cross over her chest.

“A god? Really.”

“Yeah, fucking really,” Mad Sweeney says, sharply.

“So if he’s a god, what does that make you?” Laura tilts her head. “His disciple or something?”

Mad Sweeney wrinkles his nose. He’s not Grimnir’s goddamn _acolyte._ He doesn’t know where she’s gotten the idea, since Mad Sweeney’s told her _what he is_ more times than he can count.

“I’ve fucking told you,” he says, failing miserably at keeping his annoyance in check. “I’m a leprechaun.”

“Oh, of course. A leprechaun.” Laura says with a sarcastic sort of cheer. Then she looks him pointedly up and down, her tone turning nasty. “Last I checked you were about five too many feet tall to be on a cereal box.”

She’s not listening, and Mad Sweeney tries to rein in the urge to throttle her. Grimnir wouldn’t call if he wasn’t already on his way. He’s a hunter. He doesn’t let loose the baying hounds unless the prey is already in sight. Or wolves, in this case.

“We don’t have time for this,” Mad Sweeney says. “You need to leave.”

“Leave?” Laura blinks. “This is my house, I’m not leaving.”

“Look, Grimnir, you can’t trust him—”

“Don’t need to trust him—” Laura begins to argue.

“And you don’t want to be anywhere near him, either,” he says, pitching his voice loud over hers. Maybe if he’s loud enough she’ll finally fucking hear him for once.

Then she asks him another question that makes his throat run dry.

“What would a ‘god’ even want with me, anyway?” Laura asks, exasperated.

And he--

He tells the truth, but he lies in all the ways that matter.

“Sometimes the gods just like to fuck with us.”

 

Inevitably, Laura asks him to prove it, and Mad Sweeney isn’t surprised when she does. But Laura doesn’t have visions, can’t hear the songs of magic and luck that he can. She can’t even see the golden glow of his limited magic pressed into her temple. So he does his best, pours a hundred pounds in gold of his hoard in front of her very eyes, disbelieving under furrowed brows, and even that doesn’t work. He almost gives up, then.

Then she says, “At least tell me why he’s coming now.”

And he’s tired of lying, exhausted from arguing with her about her own goddamn safety, frustrated with hiding away the cold, dirty truth of how and why they met. Fuck it. Maybe this truth will wake her up, will shock her into actually doing what he says for goddamn once. She already thinks he’s crazy anyway. He straightens up and looks her dead in the eyes.

“Grimnir hired me to keep you from meeting your future husband,” he tells her.

A huff of laughter escapes Laura’s mouth. “What?”

“Grimnir has a job for him, one that he wouldn’t do if you were in his life. He hired me to get you out of the way. Make sure you never even met.” Mad Sweeney sucks in a breath, then adds, “He wanted me to kill you.”

Mad Sweeney looks down, away from the confusion plain on her face. Laura’s a smart woman, lack of faith in faeries notwithstanding. She might not understand magic, but she understands how shitty people can be just fine.  

He doesn’t want to say what’s next. He doesn’t want to see the way her face will twist with disgust. It’s a selfish wish, but he acknowledges it.

For all his flaws, Mad Sweeney has always claimed he’s not a bad man. All of a sudden, he’s not so sure.

“You were supposed to die in a car accident a few years into your marriage,” he says finally, each word heavy on his tongue, “Make your piece of shit husband grieve and get angry, be willing to do anything for the man who hired him. You were supposed to die with Robby’s cock in your mouth.”

It takes Laura a moment to respond.

“He wants you to kill me?”

“I’m not sure,” he says, and it’s a lie, again, but a harmless one in the scheme of things. “Technically, I already took care of it.”

Laura stares at him, face blank. Waiting for him to continue, to explain away the long deception. He doesn’t have answer for her.

“Is that what you call it?” She says, anger finally burrowing into her voice and camping there. “Staying in my house, drinking all my beer, burying my damn cat-–”

Laura stops, her voice cut like a puppet on a string. After a moment, she recollects herself and continues. “Because your boss didn’t want me to meet some imaginary man?”

“I didn’t have to do it that way!” Mad Sweeney snaps, and it’s not fair of him to take his frustration out on her when he made his choice long ago. But he _is_ angry. Because she should never have been able to change his mind, should never have been able to make this so goddamn hard. “I could have robbed you, kidnapped you, hell, I could have run you over with a damn car, it didn’t matter to that piss-headed bastard. What mattered was that you were out of the way.”

“How generous of you,” Laura says, and her tone is pure acid, sharper than any sword he’s ever taken to battle. “Deciding to _fuck_ me instead.”

There’s nothing he can say to that, no magic that can turn back time. Even if he had it, Mad Sweeney isn’t even sure he would’ve made a different choice. Silence echoes between them, even the Kingsgold remaining cold and still. Laura stands there, the distance between them wider than any kitchen has a right to be, and Mad Sweeney forces himself to take in the full expression on her face.

Mad Sweeney doesn’t have enough fingers and toes to count how often Laura McCabe has told him she hates him in the two years Mad Sweeney has known her.

This is the first time he’s ever thought she meant it, and she isn’t even saying a word.

 

“Was everything a lie?” She asks, eventually. “Was it a lie every time?”

She laughs, a cold, bitter sound that seems to echo. “Was it a big umbrella lie,” she adds, all tilted sarcasm, “under which there were many smaller lies?”

It’s almost funny, fucking hilarious really, because when he told her the truth before she’d never believed him, not once, and now she’s frustrated when he lies.  Mad Sweeney doesn’t laugh.

“The job was done when you missed meeting Shadow Moon,” he says instead.

“And when was that supposed to be?”

“December,” he tells her. “Last year.”

Something in Laura’s eyes flicker and shutter closed.

“Take care of your boss,” Laura says, and walks away.

 

Laura shuts herself away in the bedroom. He considers following her for a few minutes before finally deciding to settle in on the couch instead.  He turns on the television and doesn’t move.

 

Despite his best efforts, it’s hard to sleep that night. His thoughts tumble too fast in his head for his body to relax, and he’s grown too used to another body being beside him to be fully comfortable.

Instead, he starts weaving magic, the Kingsgold humming as he does. It’s a message for Grimnir to meet him, a parley of sorts that Mad Sweeney has no confidence the old god will accept, even if Mad Sweeney works for him.

Used to work for him.

Mad Sweeney takes his time with it, weaving the message so that malicious magic can’t be sent back, applies his curse so that it will be transformed and fly elsewhere. It’s incredibly draining, the kind of work he hasn’t done in an age, and he breaks into a cold sweat long before he finishes. Once Mad Sweeney is convinced that there’s no way Grimnir will be able to send something through with magic--or at least, won’t be willing to spend the immense resources required to break through just to kill him here and now, when sending the wolves tomorrow would work just as well--he sends the message off.

Grimnir responds soon after, his agreement leaving a buildup of static in the air. It makes the hair on Mad Sweeney’s arms stand up, and he accidentally shocks himself more than once, muttering curses all the while.

Grimnir will meet him at the bar tomorrow. A place where his power has been built over time, and worshippers drink in his name. A shitty situation all around, but Mad Sweeney has no choice. He’ll go, and make deals, and Grimnir will crow over him, but it should work well enough. Grimnir craves supplication, and if that’s what Mad Sweeney has to give him to end this whole farce, so be it.

Tomorrow, Mad Sweeney reminds himself. Then he closes his eyes, and doesn’t sleep.

 

By the morning, Mad Sweeney has already cleaned the kitchen and washed all the dishes. He’s rediscovered the few things outside of those in the bedroom that he might want to keep and that could fit in a black trash bag. He makes it all take longer than he needs to, but none of it takes long enough. He settles back on the couch by the time the sun rises, counting the hours until he meets Grimnir.

He doesn’t expect Laura to come out that morning, cradling a bowl of oatmeal and settling down on the couch to his left, but he should have. Of all the things Laura is, a coward isn’t one of them.

He is fiercely, intensely glad that it’s almost time to leave.

“I called Grimnir last night,” he says, because she needs to know that much. “I’m meeting him out of town today.”

“Okay,” Laura says.

Mad Sweeney stands, gathers a handful of things to take with him, more to have something to do with his hands than out of any actual need. While he does, Laura leaves for the kitchen, her bowl hitting the sink with a clatter he can hear from the next room.

“Stay in the house,” he tells her, raising his voice so she can hear him. Not wanting to speak, but figuring he has to. “Don’t watch the TV, don’t use the internet, nothing.”

Last night, he thought he saw McDreamy wink at him, the television flickering briefly before he turned it off.

“Don’t leave,” he adds, “and--”

He hesitates, not sure what else to say before he leaves. After this meeting, it might be the last time he sees her. For real, this time. It’s silly to not want her to hate him, given that last time he left he was still sure he would kill her, but-- “Don’t throw out my shit until I get back, alright?”

“I think you mean _my shit_ , Carrot Top.” Laura says, and he can’t read her at all.

As he leaves, he sees the golden shimmer of his magic out of the corner of his eye.

 

The bar, wide and square, looms in front of Mad Sweeney as he walks towards it. The clouds above him grow fat with rain, and Mad Sweeney can once again feel static electricity building in the air. An intimidation tactic that won’t work unless Grimnir actually hits him with lightning, Mad Sweeney decides. By the time he arrives at the doors, the rain hasn’t broken yet.

Mad Sweeney resists the urge to kick the doors down and start a fight outright. Instead, he pushes them open like he usually would, striding in, eyes flickering side to side as he tries to find Grimnir hiding in the corners. As he enters, he realizes the air conditioner is off again like the first time he’d visited the place. The sticky humid air is clinging to his face, the lack of circulation making it sour.

Mad Sweeney moves forward towards the booths. Seven bearded men in black leather motorcycle jackets drink throughout the room, their eyes following Mad Sweeney as he moves. The bartender, busy drying a pile of glasses to hang them from a holder above his head, sets them down. Mad Sweeney turns to face him.

“He’s not coming, is he?” Mad Sweeney says. The other bar patrons rise, watching him in an eerie silence punctuated by the flash of thunder.

Fair play to him, the bartender doesn’t lie.

“No,” the man says, “he’s not.”

Maybe Mad Sweeney should be surprised, but all he can articulate to himself is a dull sort of recognition. _Of course_ Grimnir wasn’t ever going to come. _Of course_ he was a goddamn fool for ever thinking he would.

Then, Mad Sweeney feels a meaty hand clamp down on his shoulder, and the adrenaline hits.

Mad Sweeney swings out wildly on instinct. It’s not the best idea, taking on a crowd of bikers while Grimnir hunts down the should-be dead girl he left behind, but no one’s ever accused Mad Sweeney of making proper decisions for himself. His fist connects with a satisfying crunch, breaking one man’s nose, but Mad Sweeney has no time to enjoy it. He shifts to dodge a man attempting to tackle him to the floor, but backs into a second who's busy wrapping his hands around Mad Sweeney’s middle and trying to crush the life out of him. The rest of the bikers crowd around Mad Sweeney, punching him anywhere they can reach as Mad Sweeney kicks out his feet to hold them at bay.

Instinctively, Mad Sweeney reaches for the Kingsgold in his head, humming a tune as the coin vibrates under his skin. It’s been a long time since he _really_ used the magic of the Kingsgold, content for decades to simply let it advise him. After the strain of the spells he weaved last night, it should be difficult, but when Mad Sweeney reaches for the coin it _sings_ , pure and clear, easy as breathing.

A man in front of him swings and misses as Mad Sweeney ducks forward, the thick fist flying full force into the face of the biker holding him. The man holding Mad Sweeney rears back, grip loosening, and Mad Sweeney tears himself free. He reaches for a pintglass from the bar, slamming it against the head of one of his attackers and grabbing the man’s thick hair at the same time. Pieces of glass cut into the biker’s head, spraying blood, as Mad Sweeney smashes the man’s head against the bar as hard as he can, once, twice. As the man collapses back, Mad Sweeney lifts up his hand, free of even a scratch from the long shards of thick beer mug embedded in the man’s skull, to pull forward another charging biker and redirect him into the crowd, knocking over at least three.

The rest all fall onto Mad Sweeney, fists flying and knives slashing, but none of them connect, each one redirected, barely mistimed, to hit a companion. Mad Sweeney headbutts one biker, chairs another. When the bartender pulls out a gun, the thing doesn’t shoot. The bartender opens the gun’s action to remove the malfunctioning cartridge, Mad Sweeney too busy splitting his knuckles on someone’s face, and when he does the hangfire discharges. Mad Sweeney laughs, loud and wide and full, as the bartender screams and clutches what remains of his hand to his chest.

Kingsgold singing, a long-forgotten aria of blood and mayhem filling his bones, Mad Sweeney tears seven humans apart and enjoys every fucking minute of it.

 

Between the journey to and from the bar and the fight, even at a dead sprint Mad Sweeney doesn’t get back to the house until an hour after he left. Fat droplets of cold rain stinging his face as he runs, Mad Sweeney estimates it’s the first time he’s wished for his curse back since he came to America. At least the rain washed most of the blood off.

The door is unlocked when he arrives and he slams it open. So much magic is flowing through his system that the Kingsgold is operatic, and he finds Laura instantly, his mark is blindingly bright from where Laura waits in the kitchen.

“So you’re a leprechaun, then.” Laura says.

Her eyes are dark and tired as she looks at him over her shoulder. Mad Sweeney’s heart races in his chest, still on edge, and it makes him want to sink his nails into the flesh of his arm and squeeze until he draws blood. Laura’s face, on the other hand, is still and deadly pale. She’s resting her glass against her temple, ice tinkling against its edge as she moves.

“Wednesday was here,” he says, wheezy, “What—"

“Don’t,” Laura says, and her voice is as hard-edged as ever, even when she looks like death warmed over, “and sit down. You’re going to drink with me until I process this shit.”

Mad Sweeney doesn’t argue, moving into the kitchen to join her. His heart still beats a rapid press in his chest, but as he sits, it begins to slow, gradually returning to a mortal pace. As Mad Sweeney tries to catch his breath, Laura lifts her drink from the side of her head to take a sip. It smells like one of his nicer whiskeys, although he doesn’t comment on it. An extra coffee mug is resting on the table and he grabs it, takes a whiff.

“You gonna poison me now?”

Laura’s eyes slide over to meet his. “You think of all the ways I want to kill you, poison is the one I’ll choose?”

Which, fair enough--Laura’s threats to kill or maim him are usually direct violence and punishment-based, more Lizzie Borden than Nannie Doss. He takes a sip from the mug, letting the whiskey burn the back of his throat. He stole a beer from the bar, chugged it when he needed a little liquid to wet his throat on his way back, but the drink in his hand is far more satisfying. “What happened?”

Laura is quiet for a long time, throat working. Once or twice she opens her mouth to speak, then winces, moving her glass back to soothe her temple. The magic of the Kingsgold is slowing in his veins as his adrenaline returns to normal levels, and Mad Sweeney can only catch the edge of magic, not his, radiating from her, like the glow left behind after a television’s been shut off. He can almost taste it, like ozone, and he wonders how in the hells Laura is even still alive.

“It won’t--” Laura says, then stops, shakes her head, and corrects herself. “Wednesday came by right after you left. Said you belong to him or some shit, I said you didn’t.”

She goes quiet. One hand drifts to her chest, grips the shirt there tight.

“This is fucking insane,” she says. She turns to look at Mad Sweeney, then, anger burning behind the flat affect she’s been playing at maintaining. Her voice shakes as she clenches her fist. “He wanted me to believe in him, or something, so he sent me somewhere. At first I thought he drugged me, made me have some weird head trip.”

Something about what Laura is saying clicks in Mad Sweeney’s head. Grimnir, worried about _belief_ , the way he feeds on it as all gods do. As Mad Sweeney does, twisted through church and General Mills as it is. Mad Sweeney has never _needed_ Laura to believe in leprechauns, but for some reason or another, Grimnir does. Mad Sweeney has no idea why, and, now that Laura is finally willing to entertain the thought that maybe Mad Sweeney isn’t as full of shit as she thought he was, Grimnir’s gone.

But stories have a certain structure, and he won’t distract Laura from telling hers, even as the questions burn.

“What’d you see?” He asks, and manages to leave it at that.

“Some deadworld or something,” Laura says. “A desert, some grim reaper guy, then a bone orchard with a giant universe tree and fire-eyed buffalo that set off a goddamn chain migraine in my head.” She pauses, then sets down her drink to rub at her forehead. The glass is empty. “Is everyone in that place such a prick?”

Mad Sweeney huffs. “Grimnir--Wednesday--calls it the Backstage. Most gods can go back and forth, depending.” He thinks about it for a second, then adds, “So, pretty much yeah.”

“Can _you_ send people there?”

“To the green? Fuck no. I can barely get myself there when the winds are right. I’ve told you, m’not a god.”

Laura rolls her eyes. “Because you’re a leprechaun, tight.” She lifts her hands and claps them together, a slow and pointed. “I do believe in faeries, I do, I do.”

Mad Sweeney scowls. “Bang on,” he says, disdain dripping from every word, “you’ve got it now. Only took you two years to do it, too.”

Laura drops her hands and frowns at him.“I know it’s physically impossible for you not to be a total ass, but can you not for one fucking minute? This is kind of a big deal for me.”

 _You started it_ , he thinks, but given that Laura’s head should have already exploded if she really visited the other side, he’s inclined to be the bigger person and let it go. Mad Sweeney grips his mug tight, taking a swig and resting it back on their kitchen table.

“Humans don’t last very long in the green,” he warns her. “The magic twists and breaks them.”

Laura’s eyes narrow at that. She grabs Mad Sweeney’s mug from the table, pouring what remains into her own glass. “So, then.” She says, turning towards him to stare him in the face. “Where were _you_ during this whole thing?”

“Meeting was rigged. Ended up having to fight off a fuckin’ biker gang as a consolation prize.”

“So you’re telling me I had to deal with Wednesday--a literal god-- while you were busy beating off a gang of bikers.”

“Oh yeah, I had a whale of a time,” Mad Sweeney says. “There I was, on me tod with seven bikers on my ass, and I thought, well, let’s just have a wee wank, let Wednesday do his thing.”

Laura snorts. “Wouldn’t surprise me,” she says. “But, yeah. There was the whole dead thing, I got back, and then he implied he wanted to kill me, and left.” Laura lifts her stolen drink and finishes it with a final long pull. She stares down at empty glass, where her fingers wrap around around it to tap out an aimless pattern.

That means this isn’t over, Mad Sweeney knows. The battle is ways away, and now they have a target on their backs besides.

“Shit.” Mad Sweeney says. “ _Fuck_.”

“What did you want from him?” Laura says flatly. There’s an echo of their argument in her tone, the strange distance that he experienced when he first arrived and first returned. It’s a distance that he isn’t sure he can come back from a second time, but if he’s honest, the point is moot. He’s made promises he has to keep, promises he won’t come back from, and now that she knows about gods and monsters and magic, there’s not much point in hiding it from her. That doesn’t make it any easier to look her in the eyes and say it, though.

“There’s a war,” Mad Sweeney tells her. “Between the old gods and the new. Grimnir knows where it will be. I work for him, I get an invitation.”

Laura snaps her head around to look at him. “You’re doing his dirty work so you can go to a god bar fight?”

She seems surprised, which is never a great look for her, and pissed, which, while familiar, is much worse.

“It’s a one-way ticket to a bloodbath,” Mad Sweeney says, sounding defensive against his will, and he winces. He looks away, as if that will stop Laura if she decides to start a tirade. “And it’s what I owe.”

“I don’t care what you owe,” Laura says. She stands, picking up her glass and throwing it into the sink. The glass bangs loud against the stainless steel, but Laura doesn’t wash it. She ducks her head, her hands gripping either side of the sink, white-knuckled, as she seethes. “You don’t get to fuck around with my life. I don’t care if he’s a god.”

“That’s what gods do,” he says, and it’s a hard, bitter truth, one that didn’t take him long to learn. He imagines it won’t take long for Laura to learn it, either.

But _she_ surprises _him,_  this time.

“Not anymore,” she says. Out of the corner of his eye he can see her turn to face him, standing firm and upright. It makes her seem at least a foot taller than she is. Her body is almost vibrating, something bright building behind her eyes as she says, “We’re going to kill him first.”

“You’re fucking mad.” He says, because it’s the first thing he can think of to say and because it’s the truth. He rises to his feet, no longer content to sit at the table while the woman -- the _frail, human woman_ \-- in front of him makes a new type of suicide plan.

“I don’t need your permission,” Laura says, and there’s that stubborn set to her jaw that he knows so well. She steps closer to him and he strides towards her. He too far away from her, too far to grip her in his arms and shake her until she makes sense.

And yet.

“You’re a mortal,” he says. “You’ll die.” He is amazed, bewildered, at the sheer gall that Laura has, the kind of stupid she’s exhibiting that he’s only seen in a handful of women in his lifetime. She didn’t know the danger before, couldn’t fathom it, and she doesn’t fully now, but-- she doesn’t care. She’s never cared. _A magic all it’s own,_  he thinks.

“I’ve seen death.” Laura says, and there’s a small grin pulling at her mouth, cocky, and it’s so incredibly charming that Mad Sweeney wants to strangle her. “I hear it’s called the End of All Things.”

It’s like he’s seeing her for the first time. The woman is utterly fearless, and Mad Sweeney can’t help but sway towards her, pulled in by something beyond his conscious control. As if sensing his doubts, Laura lifts her shirt up and over her head and throws it to the floor. In between her breasts he can see it, then, crawling branches of upraised flesh, a brand of the other side carved into her skin.

The mark, ragged like a lightning strike, is a flushed purple-red. In his mind’s eye he can see it blazing, the remnant of magic searing hot. It reminds him of his own Kingsgold -- not the soft glow still radiating from Laura’s temple, but the true magic he keeps hidden within his hoard. He can’t help but reach out and trace the outline, taking his time as he maps its ragged edge. Laura sucks in a breath and the tip of his thumb brushes against her nipple when he finally presses his hand against the newborn scar, feeling it burn beneath his palm.

“I shouldn’t be surprised you survived,” he says, and he still can’t believe it, is still wondering how he ever underestimated Laura’s sheer stubbornness and selfish self-regard. Of course she wouldn’t lose herself in Grimnir’s Backstage. Of course Grimnir’s powers wouldn’t work on a woman whose lack of faith was as deep-seated and desperate as that of any saint or martyr. “You’re such a righteous cunt,” he says, awed.

“Don’t call me that,” Laura says, “or I’ll break your finger off at the knuckle.”

No matter how long-lived, Mad Sweeney is still just a man.

He buries his hands in Laura’s hair and pulls her towards him, mouth seeking and desperate.

Tomorrow, he'll steal the keys and leave without her, he decides. No matter how brave, how stubborn a woman she is, this is a war she can’t win. He won’t let her die, won’t let her be a sacrifice in Grimnir’s mad games. He'll be the good man for once, keep her out of danger.

Until then -

Well, even mortals deserve to be worshiped from time to time.

 

 

 

...Of course, no plan survives contact with the enemy.

“Look here, ginger minge,” Laura says after she catches him in the morning, cursing and digging through her bag as he searches for her keys. His shirt is wrapped in her fist as she pulls him forward. The car keys are gripped tight in her other hand. “You tell me where this place is and I let _you_ come with _me,_  or so help me God I will wreck you in every way I know how.”

Not one of her better threats. But--

Well--

_Fuck._

“Fine,” he says. “But I pick the fucking music.”

 

In the morning, Laura’s hands wrapped casually around the wheel of her old, beaten up car and miles of asphalt behind them, Mad Sweeney tells Laura McCabe the truth.

This time, she believes him.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is absolutely a labor of love, and the longest thing I've ever written, hands down. After writing Laura's story (and reading your wonderful comments), I realized I wasn't quite done with this 'verse. There was so much more, not just after that fic, but from Mad Sweeney's side that Laura never experienced.
> 
> It took a long time and was written in many fits and starts (grad school is a hell of a drug), but ultimately I'm really proud of the end result. Eventually I'll write the conclusion to this and Laura's story--I have it more or less outlined, and have dropped a few of the building blocks in this fic--but it will definitely be long after I'm inspired by the new dynamics of the second season. Regardless, I hope you enjoy Mad Sweeney's side of the story while you wait.
> 
> I really enjoyed writing Mad Sweeney's characterization here, and I hope the gradual change he goes through feels believable. While ALSO a terrible person, Mad Sweeney, I think, is a little more emotionally self-aware, a little more dramatic, and definitely more informated about the world of myths and legends than Laura is. Plus, unlike Laura, I think he does have a bit more of an impetus to be a better person, although his mercurial nature and cynical attitude tend to swing him the opposite way. He certainly feels more guilt and responsibility than Laura does, both here and in canon! It was fun to explore how that might play out when he wasn't down on his luck and desperately trying to get it back. It was fun making up lore, too, and I hope I did the other gods of various pantheons justice. (Mad Sweeney's viewpoints and choice of language aren't mine, I will clarify here).
> 
> Here are some fun facts about the fic:
> 
> The beginning of the dinner conversation with Laura's mother is partly based on one I've had in real life, although the question I was asked, apropos of nothing, was, "So when did you accept Jesus into your heart?"
> 
> All the titles are based on ABBA lyrics, so I affectionately refer to this series as the ABBA Chronicles in my head, because I think it's funny.
> 
> Guiding Light is a very old soap opera, and one of the plotlines, genuinely, is that one of the women (Reva) gets evil cloned. I just had to include it.
> 
> I was always super tempted to have Mad Sweeney perpetually grin mockingly, but show-wise, as funny as the character is, he doesn't actually smile that much. Neither does Laura for that matter, although the way they show their general discontent is radically different. Especially when Laura doesn't have super-strength.
> 
> Did Mad Sweeney fuck up Laura's laundry on purpose to get her to be mad at him again? Maybe. You decide.
> 
> Finally, I built these two stories on the premise that both Laura and Mad Sweeney are each unreliable narrators in their own way, 1) to help smooth over any continuity error, and 2) because who here actually believes these two would ever actually be honest about how they feel and when?
> 
> Anyway, that's all. I hope you liked it.


End file.
